


You Can't Choose

by inyron



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bullying, Community: glee_angst_meme, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 52,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inyron/pseuds/inyron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixteen years ago, Kurt's mom kidnapped him and ran halfway across the country. Now he's back in Lima, and has to deal with a new step-family, a new school, and a father who never had a chance to come to terms with his high-school homophobia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Choose

**Author's Note:**

> Season 2 AU, originally written as a fill for [this](http://glee-angst-meme.livejournal.com/7446.html?thread=9735190#t9735190/) prompt on the Glee Angst Meme. Thanks to Lovely_ego and Narie for helping me, and giving me feedback.

“Kurt? Kurt!”

Kurt groaned and pulled his pillow over his head.

“Wake up, sweetie. It’s already 6:15. If you don’t get up now, you won’t have time to get ready before school-” 

“I’m up, I’m up!” he called, leaping out of bed.

His mother stuck her head in the door. “Maybe if you weren’t out so late with Adrian, you’d be up on time,” she said, teasingly.

Kurt rolled his eyes slightly, and headed towards the bathroom. “I was back by curfew,” he defended half-heartedly.

“Okay, okay, just hurry up. I’ll have breakfast ready in 30 – what do you want today, egg white omelets, or breakfast burritos?”

“Omelets,” he said. “And do we have any more fake sausage patties?”

“Got it,” she said with a smile, and ducked her head out. Kurt started his shower.

* * *

Kurt did in fact arrive at school with time to spare, thank you very much. He was only out with Adrian until 10 the night before, and if he had to finish his Chemistry homework during 3rd period study hall, instead of passing notes with Sandy and Mei-Ling, well, some sacrifices were worth it. After he finished it, he gave a mental sigh of relief and started planning that evening’s activities, since geometry had been second period, and the rest of the day should be a breeze.

It happened sixth period, during French. 

He hadn’t expected it, but then again, you never do.

Mrs. G, the vice principal came in, with that _look_ on her face. Kurt had seen it before, last year, when Kelly’s mom had finally lost her battle with cancer. She had called her out of the classroom, and everyone had known, even though they hadn’t been told until later. Kurt had gone to the viewing, along with his mother, and Kelly had been a mess, even though her family had been expecting it for a while.

No one in this classroom was expecting it.

 _Please_ , Kurt thought. _Please not-_

“Kurt Wickham?” she asked, staring straight at him, and giving him a detached sort of smile. “Can you come with me?”

Kurt gathered his things mechanically, acutely aware of every eye on him. He didn’t say anything until they were walking together in the hall. “Tell me. Please just tell me. Is she alive?”

“Your mother…” Ms. G turned slightly to face him, but kept walking. “She’s alive, Kurt. She, she’ll be… she’s not hurt.”

“I don’t understand.” Kurt said. There wasn’t anyone _but_ his mother. “What’s going on?”

They turned the corner to the office, and Kurt saw the two police officers there, an unfamiliar woman in a pantsuit and tight bun with them. She stepped forward. “Is this him?” she asked, and everyone was staring at him again.

“Yes,” Mrs. G said, and motioned him forward, towards the unfamiliar woman, towards the police. It felt like a betrayal. “This is Kurt.”

* * *

It was supposed to be good news, Finn knew. Burt was so happy he was crying, which was weird and kind of unsettling, because he’d never seen Burt cry before. And his mom looked genuinely happy, even though this had nothing to do with her, with them. He wasn’t her kid, and she had never met him, but Burt cared about him, and therefore so did she. And Finn, Finn excused himself to his room, but it wasn’t like either of them noticed.

Things had been going pretty well for him lately. New Directions was going to Nationals, Quinn and he were public now, and she was putting out more than ever, and no one had thrown a slushie at him in a very long time. It had been a great year, really, starting back in August when his mom and Burt had gotten married. 

Burt was super awesome. He was really nice to Finn’s mom, and he and Burt did things together all the time, too, like going to games, or watching sports on the big-screen, or working at the garage. Finn hadn’t known the first thing about cars before Burt and his mom started dating, but Burt had shown him how to do all sorts of things, and even trusted him to work on some of the cars by himself – or with not too much supervision, at least. Burt trusted him. Liked him. Treated him like a son, really…

Finn had known about Kurt from the start. Poor baby Kurt, kidnapped by his crazy criminal mom, lost forever, but Burt’s such a good dad, he’s never given up looking, oh no. It was supposed to be good news. A miracle. The P.I. company had called, excited, said they had found him living with her in Seattle, that he was fine, that they were calling the police in.

Burt had cried. His mom was happy.

Finn felt like maybe he was horrible, bad person. Because all he could think was _“No.”_ He had known about Kurt from the start, but it was never ‘Burt has a son out there, who will be joining us.’ It was ‘Burt lost his son, isn’t it sad?’ with the unspoken _but he’s never given up, isn’t he a good dad? Wouldn’t you like him to be your dad?_ and the even less acknowledged, but still present _You lost your father and he lost his son. You can take Kurt’s place, and he’ll be the father you never had._ Finn had bought into it, tried to be the best substitute Kurt he could be, and in return, Burt smiled at him with fondness and called him “son.”

But it was all a lie, because Kurt wasn’t lying in a grave somewhere out there like Finn’s dad. He was living, and breathing, and in Seattle apparently, and now he was coming to Lima. And he had Burt’s DNA, and he was Burt’s son first, damnit, and Finn couldn’t compete. Going to a few ball games and living together for less than a year was nothing compared to the type of hope and love that had kept Burt searching for all this time. That was bringing Kurt home to his father.

Finn felt like a horrible person, but he couldn’t help it. Kurt might have been rescued from his crazy mom, but he was crashing right into the middle of Finn’s family. And now everything was going to change.

* * *

It felt like he was being kidnapped.

He shared that observation with Mrs. Hu, the lady with the tight bun who hadn’t left his side since he’d left – since he’d practically been _forcibly removed_ from – Franklin High. She hadn’t been amused, and she’d refused to give him his phone back. Refused to let him contact any of his friends, any of the adults he knew.

“The police have to finish investigating,” she had said. “We just want to keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?” he had practically screeched, and she had just shaken her head and frowned.

They’d already told him what was going on, what his mother had supposedly done, and he had already told them that he didn’t believe any of it, and that they needed to take him to her now, because she was his mother, and you can’t keep a child from their mother. If she was in jail, he would just have to go to jail too.

That conversation hadn’t gone over well. None of them had, today. 

Especially the ones regarding his father.

His mother had told him about his father. Not much, but… enough. His father was the last person he wanted to live with, he knew (he had remarked, at one point, that Sandy Ferguson’s parents would definitely put him up, and if he just got his phone back, then maybe…) but she kept saying things like “custody.” Things like “kidnapped,” and “fugitive,” and “embezzlement,” and really, was this his life, or a David E. Kelley show? He didn’t believe any of it, not really, but no one was interested in what he had to say.

“She’s still my mom,” he tried again. “She’s not some crazy lady off the street, who took me away. She’s my mom. She needs me. I need her. I don’t even know my dad.”

“That’s not his fault,” she told him, patiently.

“Maybe she couldn’t leave me there. Maybe he was horrible.”

Kurt was pretty sick of all the pitying looks he was getting today.

* * *

In the end, he got a few suitcases, and none of them contained his phone.

“Everything else has to be taken for processing,” Mrs. Hu told him, “but you can keep some of your clothes. I’m only supposed to let you have one suitcase, but… Officer Jimenez okayed the extra ones. Apparently you have a very impressive closet.”

“I do,” he said. “Three suitcases isn’t going to work. It’s not even going to be enough for my coats.” 

All he got in return for that was a “choose wisely.” 

He stood in front of the house for a minute before going in. He hadn’t cried once, not since this whole thing started, but he hadn’t needed to, because none of this was _real_. But now he was inside of his house, the house he might not ever see again, and they were going to make him leave behind his books, and his music, and his tiaras, and maybe even his lotions and conditioners, if they were going to be sticklers on this whole “clothes” thing. And he might not ever see it again, his house. His life.

He considered making a break for it, running down the street to Sandy’s house, telling her parents to call the media, because he had just been kidnapped by some crazy public officials.

He considered crying, just breaking down right here, and refusing to take another step, because if they were going to tear him away from his mother, he wasn’t going to make it easy on them.

He ended up going into the house, into his room, and triaging his belongings. 

This was really going to happen. They were really going to do this, going to send him to Lima, Ohio. He wasn’t asleep, wasn’t living out some crazy TV dream, and he wasn’t going to wake up.

He was right, though. Three suitcases weren’t nearly enough. Mrs. Hu kindly ignored the tears streaming down his face, and let him pack four.

* * *

The doorbell rang, and Finn’s heart stopped.

Everything was happening too fast. His mom ducked her head put of the kitchen, and looked wide-eyed at Burt. “Fuck,” Burt said. “Is that- I didn’t even hear anyone pull up.” Burt put down his glass of wine. (Frank, the P.I., had brought it when he came over to witness the reunion, and get his last check. They were splitting it now, and even Finn got offered a glass.) “Sorry Finn, Carole,” he said. “Didn’t mean to swear, just… excited. I should get that.”

Finn’s mom came in the room, and Frank stood up expectantly as Burt crossed the room and opened the door. There was an older Asian lady there, and then – that had to be Burt’s son, didn’t it? He was wearing _‘I wonder what kinds of sports he plays,’ Burt had wondered aloud_ a pink and white T-shirt, and pants that made his legs look skinny. And… was that glitter on them? 

“Mr. Hummel?” the older lady asked.

“Kurt?” Burt whispered.

Fin made eye contact with the boy, whose eyes appeared to be looking for something that was not his father to focus on. He had a small frown on his face, but other than that… Finn would almost say he looked bored, if he didn’t know the other boy was in the middle of seeing his father for the first time in sixteen years.

“This is Kurt,” the lady at the door confirmed. “Let’s come in, Kurt. Mr. Hummel, is there anyone who can help bring in Kurt’s bags? He has three more in the backseat.”

“I’ll get them,” Finn volunteered quickly. 

“Me too,” said Frank. “You guys should have a minute alone anyway.”

As they passed Kurt to head out the door, Kurt (who was now looking at Finn’s mom with that same uninterested look) tightened his grip on the one bag he was holding, and Finn noticed that he was wearing _‘He’s just a little younger than you, I’m sure you’ll get along great!’_ purple nail polish which seemed to be glittery, just like his pants. 

“Well, he don’t seem too much like your father, does he?” asked Frank, when they were outside. There were three big bags in the backseat, and Finn grabbed one.

“I guess not,” he replied. Frank grabbed the other two, and they walked slowly back towards the house.

“Mr. Hummel, can I talk to you alone for a minute?” the lady was asking Burt when they got back in. Everyone seemed frozen in the same places they had been when they had left, which was weird. They hadn’t seen each other since Kurt was a baby; you’d think they’d want to hug, or something.

“Of course,” Burt said, voice sounding funny. “Finn, Frank, why don’t you take those bags down to the basement, and show Kurt where he’s going to be staying?” 

It hit Finn like a punch to the throat. He and Kurt were going to be sharing a room.

He had already known that, of course. He and his mom and Burt had all sat down and discussed it. They would look into adding an addition to the house as soon as possible, but until then, he didn’t mind sharing his room, did he? They had brought the old cot out of storage for Kurt to use, but quickly changed their minds, and his mom had gone out to buy a new bed for Kurt, which had been delivered that morning. She had made it with new green sheets, and made Finn pick up all the clothes that he’s accidently forgotten to put in the hamper, then smiled and proclaimed it perfect.

Finn had been unhappy enough about it this morning – none of his friends had to share their rooms, after all, but now…

I mean, he wasn’t going to say anything, but he was pretty sure Kurt was gay. 

Finn didn’t have a problem with gay people – he always got along with Rachel’s dads okay – but he’d never met any kids his own age who were like that. Like this. And okay, that rainbow zipper tag on Kurt’s bigger suitcase? He was pretty sure he’d seen that same design before, as a magnet on Rachel’s fridge.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was – 

“I’m sleeping here?” Kurt asked, and Finn couldn’t stop himself from wincing, because yeah, Kurt’s voice was high-pitched, and almost sounded like a girl’s. Almost.

“Yeah,” Finn said. “That twin bed over there.” 

Kurt looked at the bed, then around at the rest of the room – X-Box hooked up to the small TV, sports posters on the wall, hamper overflowing in the corner. “Lovely,” he said, like he didn’t really mean it.

“We’re sharing a bathroom too,” he said, pointing at the door as he thought of it. He cringed to himself. Sharing a bathroom? How would that even work? He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want any of this. 

Frank shifted back and forth uncomfortably, and Kurt peered in the bathroom. “How’s the water pressure?” he asked, and Finn shrugged. Kurt sighed kind of dramatically. “Where’s the closet? How much room do I have for my stuff?”

“Er,” Finn said. “We really didn’t have time to clean it out – it’s kinda filled with a lot of my sports equipment.” Kurt sniffed, and Finn was starting to get pissed off. “It was really short notice, you know.”

“I know,” Kurt confirmed in a hard voice, but Finn kept talking over him.

“But they bought you that bed brand new, and they’re talking about building another room onto the house, just for you.”

“Lucky me,” Kurt said, and he sounded outright snotty now. 

Frank coughed, looking really uncomfortable. “I’m going to go finish my business with your dad right now,” he said, and started up the stairs. “This is, ah, time for family now, anyway.”

Finn wondered if he could go upstairs too, but decided to wait for someone to call them- they were probably having some really uncomfortable conversations up there, too. Kurt unzipped one of his smaller bags, and pulled out a couple of bottles with differently colored lotions in them, and put them on the table nearest his bed. Once Frank was gone, and the door was closed, Kurt turned to him, and Finn was surprised to see the kind of bitchy look he had been sporting be replaced by one that was distressed and pleading. 

“Please,” Kurt begged. “Do you have a cell phone? I need to use it.”

* * *

Finn was a little confused. Should he let Kurt use the phone? Would he be able to contact his mother in jail? “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be calling your mother.”

Kurt looked increasingly upset. “I know, I know that, okay? I know she’s in jail, and I can’t talk to her. But I need to call someone – my boyfriend, my friends. They haven’t let me contact anyone, and I know they must be worried about me.”

That sounded like it really did suck. Finn knew he would be worried about Rachel – or Quinn, if they were missing. He thought they would be worried about him, too. But he still wasn’t sure about letting Kurt make calls without anyone else knowing. He decided to change the subject. “So… you have a boyfriend?”

Kurt closed his eyes. His voice sounded strained. “Yes. And I haven’t been able to talk to him. And now I’m in some place called Lima, Ohio, way far away from anything resembling home. And I just… I just want to call someone.” 

Finn felt bad, but still wasn’t quite sure what to do. “Uh, my phone isn’t working right now,” he lied.

Kurt blinked at him. “Your phone isn’t working.”

The door to the basement chose the perfect moment to open. “Boys,” Burt called, “Come on up, now.” Kurt was closer to the door, but he didn’t move, so Finn moved past him, and started up the stairs. Kurt followed quietly behind him.

When they got to the main floor, Finn noticed that his mom, Burt, and the lady who had brought Kurt, all had grim looks on their faces. “Kurt…” the lady said, and then she shook her head and laid a hand on Kurt’s arm. “I hope things work out for you.” She smiled a little sadly. “And Kurt- try to give it a chance, okay?”

Kurt had a stony look on his face again. Like the one he had before Frank left them in the basement. He didn’t acknowledge her and she sighed, nodded at his mom and Burt, and left out the front door.

“Kurt,” Burt said, after a silent pause that lasted a little too long. He reached out his arms stiffly almost as though he wanted to give his son a hug, but ended up gripping him by the shoulders instead. “Kurt,” he repeated. Kurt’s eyes were on the ground. Burt released him, and stepped back. “I know we should have done this as soon as you came in, but I forgot – introductions.” He cleared his throat.

“I know who you are,” Kurt said softly. “Mrs. Hu filled me all in.” He waved his hand limply at Finn and his mom.

“Uh, well, let me do this anyway,” Burt said. “I’m your father, Kurt. Burt. Burt Hummel. I’ve been looking for you – I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” It seemed to Finn that Burt was having trouble talking, and might even be close to crying again. But Kurt didn’t react at all, and Burt kept talking. “This is my wife, Carole – we just got married last year, but she’s really excited about meeting you, and getting to know you too. And this is her son, Finn. He’s just a little older than you.” There was another awkward silence. “I’m really glad you’re here with us, Kurt,” he finally said.

Kurt finally looked up, then over at Finn. “Do we really have to share a room?” he asked. “Because I don’t think he likes that idea any more than I do.”

Finn was absurdly grateful that Kurt was the one who brought that up. He didn’t want to say anything, but it really needed to be said.

“Don’t be silly, Finn doesn’t mind,” his mom said, and Finn was starting to get really frustrated. Why couldn’t anyone seem to admit that this wasn’t working?

“We’re thinking of building an addition to the house,” Burt said. “So that’ll be exciting. What-whatever we decide to do, you two rooming together will be temporary.”

“Yeah, I told him that,” Finn said. “I think he’s upset because there’s not a lot of room for his stuff, though? My closet’s filled with a lot of my old junk.”

For some inexplicable reason, Finn’s mom looked relieved. “Oh honey, don’t worry about that,” she told Kurt. “We’ll make sure you have all the room you need. “I’m sure a lot of Finn’s stuff can be donated, or moved to the attic, or the garage, and we can go out, and buy you a bureau, and maybe some other furniture, or decorations for down there. Or whatever you need.”

Finn wondered just what his mom thought he could give away. He hadn’t even opened the closet in months, true, but – it was his stuff. He still used it, still needed it sometimes.

“I will need to go shopping,” Kurt said. He was actually looking at Finn’s mom now. “They barely let me take anything with me.” She was nodding sympathetically back at him. “I could only take a fraction of my clothes, and just the most basic toiletries; they wouldn’t even let me take any of my lotions, or any special conditioners.”

“We have plenty of shampoo and conditioner,” Burt broke in. “And we’ll make sure you get some … new clothes.”

“I don’t even know what kind of shops you have around here,” Kurt said, still talking to his mom.

“I think we usually get our shampoo and stuff at Wal-Mart,” Finn offered. Kurt shot him a weird look, with his eyebrows raised, and his forehead kind of scrunched. Finn was saved by a ping from the kitchen.

“Oh, is dinner ready?” Burt said, looking hopeful.

“I just have to finish up a few things,” his mom said. “Kurt, Finn, why don’t you come in the kitchen with me? Finn, you can show Kurt where everything is, and then you boys can set the table.”

“Okay,” Finn said. He was actually looking forward to dinner. His mom and Burt wanted to make a special meal for Kurt’s first night with them, and since they didn’t know what kind of food he liked, they had made Finn’s favorite – fried chicken, the extra crispy kind of Ore-Ida French fries, corn, plus those great biscuits his mom made from scratch. It all smelled wonderful, he thought as he entered the kitchen. His mother looked pleased as well. As bad as this day was going so far, with food like this, dinner was still going to be great.

* * *

Kurt numbly followed Finn and Carole to the kitchen, and accepted the dishes and vague explanations that Finn gave him. The other boy kept shooting him speculative looks as they set the table together, but Kurt ignored him. They finally sat down to the meal, which frankly looked pretty greasy and disgusting. Carole loaded up a plate without asking what he wanted, and passed it to him with a smile, then did the same for Finn. Kurt surreptitiously took his napkin and pressed it against the corn, which seemed to be gleaming with butter. When the corn was still shiny after he lifted the wet napkin up, he gave up, and just started moving his food around his plate, trying to make it look like some of it was disappearing. He wondered if Burt and Carole had any pets.

“Um,” Finn said, after a few minutes of silence, and Kurt braced himself, because he thought he knew what was coming. “Kurt asked if he could use my phone. He said – he said he wanted to call his boyfriend.”

So this was it. He looked at his father’s spluttering, unhappy face, and tried to tell himself that this was a good thing – his father wouldn’t want him anymore, and he could go move in with Sandy’s parents, and try and find some way of getting his mom out of jail.

But no matter what he was telling himself, this _hurt_ – the red in Burt’s face, the way he was looking everywhere but at him – it _hurt_ , because no matter what Kurt had already known hypothetically about his father, he couldn’t help but wish that this man, stranger though he might be, accepted him. Or at least, didn’t hate him.

“You… you’re gay,” his father said.

 _It’s not as though you weren’t thinking it from the moment I stepped in here,_ Kurt thought bitterly. _I saw the way you looked at me. I ruined your joyous reunion right from the start, didn’t I?_

“Oh, you have a boyfriend? That’s nice,” Carole said.

Kurt could tell she was trying, and she did mean well – she was at least smiling at him, looking at him, unlike the two other males at the table. But she sounded a little too positive about the situation, and he had to set her straight. “I do have a boyfriend,” he informed her. “But he’s back in Seattle, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with him. He doesn’t know I – that I’m apparently living in Lima, Ohio now.” He looked over at Burt, half-wondering if he would take that opportunity to negate that statement, to call this whole experiment a failure, and set him free.

Burt was obviously still processing the gay-bomb, but caught his look, and seemed to get its significance.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you’re living here, with us, now. I suppose… you can call him later tonight, and let him know that.”

“And we’ll add a cell phone to the list of things to go shopping for,” said Carole.

“Pre-paid. Prepaid cell phone,” Burt said. “No need for anything other than that.”

Kurt decided to just go for it. “I know my mom’s in jail now,” he told Burt, gathering all of his strength and looking him directly in the eyes. “But I have friends- a lot of friends back in Seattle, and I know some of them – their parents- would be more than happy to take me in. It’s nice to meet you and everything, but I really think I belong there.”

It took Burt a few moments to get his thoughts together, but he maintained eye contact with Kurt the whole time. “I told you, Kurt. I’m your father. I might not have seen you since you were a baby, but I love you, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I’m not going to give you up. You’re staying with me.”

 _Selfish_ , Kurt thought. He looked back down at his plate, and pushed his food around with his fork a little more.

Finn got back to tearing his chicken apart, but Carole and Burt seemed to be just picking at their food as well. “Finn has some really nice friends at McKinley,” Carole said eventually. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to introduce you.”

“Uh, yeah,” Finn said, mouth full of French fries. “I… sure.”

“Do you play any sports, or belong to any clubs?” Carole asked. “Finn plays football – they were conference champs this year – and basketball. And he’s in the glee club. They’re going to the national championship in New York in just a couple of months.” She smiled proudly at Finn.

“You sing?” Kurt asked, interested in spite of himself.

“Yeah,” Finn said, and stuck more fries in his mouth.

“I was in chorus back at Franklin,” Kurt said, when it looked like Finn wasn’t going to continue. “We didn’t participate in any competitions, but we were pretty good. And I never played any sports, but Adrian – that’s my boyfriend, Adrian – he played lacrosse and basketball, so I went to all of those games.”

“Your boyfriend was a jock?” Finn asked skeptically.

“Yes,” Kurt said. “He is.”

“Well, that’s wonderful, that you like to sing too,” Carole said. “Finn, don’t you think Kurt would like your singing club?”

In all honestly, if he was really stuck here, he probably would love to join their glee club, especially if they were good enough to go to a national competition. However, based on Finn’s sour look, it looked like the last thing he would appreciate would be a homosexual tagalong, following him around school, and joining his clubs. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, and watched Finn’s face fill with relief. “It – it was never that important to me, there are other things I can do.”

“That’s a shame,” Finn said. “Mom, seconds?”

“Oh, of course,” Carole said, and she stood up, and took her son’s plate. “Kurt, do you want – oh Kurt, you’ve barely touched your meal.”

 

“Not hungry,” Kurt said quickly. It was the truth. His stomach had been twisting in so many knots since Ms. G had pulled him out of French class that he had barely eaten anything since.

“You have to be a little hungry,” she said. “Do you not like fried chicken? We weren’t sure what to make for you.”

“We generally – I mean I generally ate more... healthy. You know, tofu, lots of vegetables, whole grains.” Kurt didn’t really want to hurt her feelings, but if he was going to live here, it needed to be said. “We –I didn’t, don’t really go for things that are more heart-attack-on-a-plate.”

“Oh,” Carole said, and looked over at Burt, who was putting down a biscuit and looking unhappy. “Well, actually, eating healthy won’t be a problem. I try and make something healthy for every meal, even if it’s just on the side. Your father, he had a heart attack a few years ago, before we met. He still wasn’t eating right when we first met, but you know, I try to keep healthier things around now. Grilled chicken, streamed vegetables, plain baked potatoes and the like. We’ve never actually had tofu before; maybe you can show me how to cook it?”

“Absolutely not,” Burt said. “I’m not going to be eating any tofu.”

“But you’ll eat extra crispy fried chicken?” Kurt asked, unhappy and wondering why he cared so much. “That chicken could cut years off of your life. I hope the extra crispy skin is worth it.”

“It’s a special occasion,” Finn said. “He’s allowed to eat the good stuff on special occasions, like Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or the Superbowl. Or his birthday. Things like that.”

“A special occasion,” Kurt muttered. “Right.”

Carole got up, and went over to the refrigerator. “I have to have something here for you, Kurt,” she said. “Maybe some leftover salad?”

“I’m okay, I really did mean it when I said I wasn’t very hungry before,” Kurt told her. Burt picked up his biscuit again, and chewed slowly. Carole sat down, but she really didn’t look very happy. Kurt felt a little guilty, but his stomach still hurt.

They sat there quietly as Burt and Carole slowly finished their plates, and Finn finished his second helping. Kurt managed to eat a couple spoonfuls of corn, and half his biscuit, which really was pretty good, if a bit heavy.

“Okay,” Burt said, when everyone had pretty much finished. “Kurt, why don’t we go to the living room? I’ll let you use the phone there.”

“Wait,” Finn said. “What about dessert?” 

“Oh, sorry,” Burt said, frowning. “I don’t really feel like anything right now, but I know your mom worked hard on it.”

Carole sighed, and stood up. “I guess there’s no sense in holding it back,” she said. She retrieved a tall dish from the counter, brought it over to the table, and pulled the cover off, revealing a double-layered cake, with what looked like gooey chocolate frosting. 

_Welcome Home Kurt!_ , the cake proclaimed. For some stupid reason, Kurt felt tears welling up, but he fought them back. He was not going to let his father see him cry.

“Thank you,” he told Carole, standing up stiffly. “It looks nice, but I think I really will just wait in the living room.”

* * *

Burt sighed, and exchanged a sad look with Carole.

“I don’t think I want cake either,” Finn told his mom.

“I’m sorry about this, Finn,” Burt said, and he really did mean it. Getting Kurt back was supposed to complete his family, not… he just hadn’t counted on the awkwardness, on the fact that they all had to get to know each other before they… fit. And now that he knew Kurt was… that way, it wasn’t fair to ask Finn to share his room, but he didn’t really know what else to do. “I’ll call the contractor tomorrow; we’ll get the new room started as soon as possible, okay?”

Finn nodded, but the unhappy look stayed on his face.

“I’m sure you’ll be in the mood for cake a little later, honey, why don’t you help me clean up the kitchen for right now?” Carole asked Finn.

“I’m going to go let Kurt make that phone call now,” Burt told them, and Carole nodded.

Burt stood slowly, and made his way to the living room. Kurt was sitting slumped over on the couch as he went in, but as Burt entered, Kurt sat up straight and shot Burt a quick, poisonous glare before staring at the bowl of candy on the coffee table, and pretending like it was the most fascinating piece of glass he’d ever seen. And Burt, though still feeling sad and disquieted, now felt a burning hot flare of anger shoot its way down his heart.

This was all _her_ fault.

She had stolen his son. She had kept him for 16 years, and now, nothing was right. The baby, the baby he’d loved and cared for and held and promised the world to, seemed so distant from this boy before him. And even on top of that initial, unforgivable theft he was finding new reasons to be infuriated with her. 

There was the fact that according to the lady who brought him, she’d talked trash about him to Kurt. Kurt had been opposed to staying with his father from the very start, acting like he’d been told horrible things.

There was also the fact that she apparently let him get away with anything – honestly, painted fingernails? Glitter everywhere?

And that she obviously hadn’t remarried, which wasn’t bad in itself, but Kurt had clearly grown up without any male role models.

And not to dwell, but there was the fact that he looked _just_ like her, which was a punch in the nuts and, frankly, _disturbing_.

“Can I make two calls?” Kurt finally asked in that high, too-feminine voice. He was still staring at the bowl. “I actually only have two numbers memorized, but they should be able to – let everyone know from there.”

“Yeah,” Burt said. “I guess that’s okay.” He gestured towards the phone. “Go ahead. Like I said, we’ll get you a pre-paid phone tomorrow, so you can, uh, keep in touch.”

Kurt waited a minute before picking up the phone, and slowly dialing the numbers, but Burt didn’t move from his spot. This was all too new, and he needed to have some control of the situation. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The phone rang too many times and then clicked to voicemail. 

“Hi,” Kurt said, voice wavering. “I- I know you don’t recognize this number, but it’s me, it’s Kurt. Listen, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but – I, I’m okay. I’m staying with my father in Ohio right now…” Kurt’s eyes flicked over to him, as if to make sure he was still there, still paying attention. “But I’m okay. Um. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m sorry. I miss you. Look, this is his phone, but he said he’d buy me a new cell tomorrow, so I’ll call as soon as I can, okay? Um, take care. Bye.”

Kurt hung the phone back up, and sat there silently for a moment. “I’m usually more eloquent than that,” he told his father with a rough voice, while staring, fascinated at the numbers on the phone’s keyboard. “I just really hoped he’d pick up.”

Neither of them said anything for the next few minutes. Kurt finally picked up the phone and dialed again. This time, someone picked up on the second ring.

“Mrs. Ferguson?” Kurt asked, and Burt could’ve sworn his voice positively squeaked. “It’s Kurt. Is Sandy there?” Burt could hear a female voice on the other end of the phone speaking rapidly. “I’m okay, I’m okay. I’m actually – what have you heard?... Really? Oh my god… Is she?... No, that won’t – I’m in Ohio, I’m with my father… I know. I’m okay, I promise… He’s, he’s here listening right now actually.” Kurt’s eyes flickered over to him again, and Burt really, really wished he could hear the other end of that phone call. “He said he’d get me a new cell tomorrow, so I’ll call back as soon as I can, I promise…Yeah, Lima, Ohio… I can’t say right now, I can’t… Yes, I promise. Listen, is Sandy there?... No, that’s okay, I just wanted to hear a friendly voice, another friendly voice…No…I have no idea, please, do you think you can find out for me? … I tried to call Adrian, actually, but I got his voice mail… Okay. Okay, listen, I’m hanging up now. I’ll call tomorrow, okay? Thank you, Mrs. Ferguson. Bye.”

“She’s a friend of your mother’s,” Burt guessed as soon as he hung up, trying not to let his voice get too dark, too accusing.

“Sandy’s parent’s are, yes. They live right down the road from us. Sandy wasn’t home.”

“Okay,” Burt finally said, when it was obvious Kurt wasn’t going to move or say anything else. “It’s still pretty early, what would you like to do before bed? I can show you how the TV works; I bet there’s a Dirty Jobs or some other kinda marathon on right now.”

“That’s okay,” Kurt told him. “I’m pretty tired, I should probably start to get ready for bed. I guess I can try and do some sort of skin care routine with what I have, maybe – can I ask Carole something?”

“What?” Burt asked, suspicious.

“Nothing important, I just… Do you know if she uses any sort of cold creams at night, or anything like that?”

“I have no idea,” Burt replied, and sighed, because he knew how this was going to come across, but he had to- he had to _try_. “Kurt, listen- about this gay thing…” His son stiffened in front of him. “I just… are you sure? Like, really sure? Maybe it’s just a phase, something fun to do over in Washington? I mean, I have to tell you, they’re not going to be too thrilled about it here. But it’s not too late – I’m sure Finn can maybe try and find someone for you to try to go out with.”

“I have a boyfriend, Burt,” Kurt told him icily. “I don’t need Finn to set me up with anyone. And yes, I’m sure. I’m not going to be changing my mind. So if you think I’m defective, and want to send me back, please let me know as soon as possible. Like I said, there are people in Seattle who actually want me.”

“Just stop that right now,” Burt told him, and tried to temper down the anger flaring up again. “Like I said, you’re not going anywhere. We’re going to make this work. We might have to compromise – tomorrow, you’re going shopping, and you’ll get your phone, so I guess you can call your – Adrian on it when you need to, but tomorrow, you are also buying more appropriate clothes.” Burt ignored Kurt’s noise of protest and continued. “We will compromise, we will work this out, but we will never stop trying, okay? And the sooner you give it up the better – you are not going back to Seattle.”

“Fine,” Kurt said. “I’m going downstairs now, okay? I’m going to unpack a little and go to bed.”

“Fine,” Burt replied, as his son brushed past him and marched down the stairs, because that seemed to be all there was to say.

* * *

Kurt laid on the bed as soon as he retreated to the basement, but he didn’t end up getting much sleep that night. Finn came down after a couple of hours – Kurt pretended he was sleeping – and played an overly loud video game for a while, before turning it off and going to sleep. He figured he might have finally fallen asleep around 2.

It was still dark and quiet when he woke up again. It didn’t sound like anyone in the house was up yet but the clock on Finn’s nightstand said 5:47, so Kurt got up, took a shower and dressed for the day.

He did not try and chose a less fabulous outfit for today, screw Burt. 

When he inspected the fridge, he was a bit relieved to find some healthy food mixed in with yesterday’s leftovers, overly processed package foods, and what looked like a small bucket of double chocolate cookie dough. Kurt grabbed a neglected looking grapefruit from the bottom drawer.

“Oh! I’m glad you’re making yourself at home,” Carole said when she entered the kitchen a couple of minutes later. “Did you find everything okay? Is that all your having for breakfast?”

“Yes, thank you,” Kurt said uncomfortably, as she started pulling out cereal and bowls from the cupboard.

Kurt ate slowly as the ritual of breakfast happened all around him. Carole called Finn up, and he inhaled three helpings of Raison Bran Crunch before running back downstairs to change. Burt came out, and had a bran muffin and cup of coffee. Burt took a quick look at Kurt (and gave a quick frown as his eyes traveled down his body and took in his outfit) then started complaining about the muffin. Carole, helping herself to the cereal, dealt with him with a smile. Kurt kept snarky comments about the high caloric and fat content of muffins to himself, though he did think them really loudly.

“I’m gonna bring the stuff from your closet upstairs while you’re at school today,” Burt told Finn when the teen came back up the stairs, dressed for the day. Finn frowned. “I’ll put the sports equipment in the garage for now, and you can go through everything else when you get home.”

“You’ll get half of the closet for your own clothes, but we need to make room for now,” Carole added when her son’s expression remained gloomy.

Finn left for school, and the attention of the two adults snapped to Kurt. “We talked about it,” Carole said before Kurt could stand up, claim to be done with his breakfast and make his escape, “and we decided that I’ll be the one to take you shopping today, while Burt cleans out that closet.”

“Okay,” Kurt said. “Where are we going?” 

“Wal-Mart,” Carole said. “It’s a Super Wal-Mart, so it should have everything we’ll need.”

“We’re not… we can’t go to the mall?” Kurt asked, in the most polite voice he could muster up. “Please?”

“Ain’t nothing at the mall you can’t get at Wal-Mart,” Burt told him. “You don’t need anything… fancy, just the essentials.”

“All right,” Kurt said, after he could trust himself to open his mouth. “Thank you.”

* * *

It… wasn’t horrible, actually. Everything he got seemed a pale imitation of what he was replacing – a TracFone instead of his iPhone, cheap jeans instead of his designer ones, low-end toiletries instead of his select organic ones – but it was something. And Carole seemed content to let him get whatever he wanted as long as it wasn’t actual make-up or from the woman’s department.

The third time he wandered into that section, against her increasingly exasperated reminders, he managed to grab something off of one of the hooks, and hold it up.

“Perfect!” he proclaimed.

“Kurt –”

“For you,” he interrupted, holding it up against her. It wasn’t anything near fashionable, but it was leaps and bounds above what she currently had on. “Look, it goes great with your complexion.” 

Carole started to argue, but stopped herself, and gave him a careful look. “It is nice,” she said instead, “but we’re here to buy for you today, not for me.”

“I’m sure Burt won’t mind,” Kurt told her breezily. “I bet you haven’t gotten anything for yourself lately. And look, you have an expert shopper to help you today – I bet we could find some great accessories to go with this.”

“Maybe a couple of things,” she agreed, still looking at him intently, but smiling. “Not too much.”

The rest of the shopping trip went well, though they had a couple of unpleasant minutes when they passed the backpack section, and Carole had offered to buy him one, since he was apparently going to start high school on Monday. He picked out a messenger bag, and let her buy him pencils and notebooks, and tried not to think about going to a new, probably hostile school, one that wouldn’t have any of his friends there. It wouldn’t have anyone he knew at all, actually, except Finn.

It was still sinking in on him. This was really happening.

She took him to the market section afterwards. The produce there was pitiful (Kurt made a mental note to ask about local Farmer’s Markets later), but he found a few decent things to survive on in the meantime.

Carole seemed to be in a good mood on the way home. “I had a really good time shopping with you,” she gushed with a smile. “My goodness, I usually never buy this much. Wasn’t it fun?”

And… it was kind of fun, when he wasn’t thinking about it, but when he thought about it, when he remembered everything that was going on… 

Carole wasn’t just a shopping buddy or a make-over project; technically, legally, she was his _step-mother_. She was married to Burt. She probably thought she was going to be his mother now, and that this trip was some sort of bonding thing.

Kurt didn’t have any problem with Carole, not really. She wasn’t the one who had dragged him here, and she didn’t seem awkward around him in the way Burt and Finn were. She was probably a perfectly nice lady. But… he had a mom. She might not be able to be with him right now… but it didn’t matter, he had a mom, and he didn’t need someone trying to take her place.

“Kurt? Honey?” she asked, and Kurt realized he had checked out of the conversation a few minutes ago.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and stared out the window. “Just thinking.”

“I know you must be so overwhelmed,” she said, and her upbeat tone suddenly seemed grating. “But we’ll get through it together, one step at a time.”

* * *

School kind of sucked that day. Anytime Finn tried to concentrate on anything, horrible thoughts started creeping in, like, _what if Burt’s just throwing all my stuff away?_ or _I hope mom isn’t letting Kurt buy any purple jeans. Or tofu._ But mostly, he kept thinking about Monday, and how epically bad that day was probably going to be.

It was a shame he had already told all his friends about Kurt. If he hadn’t, maybe he could have just convinced Kurt to act like he was some random new kid, and pretended to ignore him? No, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. He and Kurt were brothers now, and he was pretty sure denying your brother was a shitty thing to do. But the problem with having told all his friends already was that they all wanted to know all about him. And Finn really didn’t feel like trying to describe him. He always seemed to stick his foot in his mouth anyway, and he wasn’t sure he could do it without saying something wrong, and sounding like a jerk – especially around Rachel. “You’ll just have to wait for Monday and meet him,” he said, and tried to smile, but he knew it looked fake and everyone just gave him funny looks.

“So, I’m guessing I can’t come over today?” Quinn asked him at the end of the day, by his locker.

“It’s nothing against you,” Finn told her. “There’s a lot to do still. Cleaning and moving stuff. And I’m pretty sure mom and Burt will want it to be family time.”

“Finn…” she said, dragging his name out. “Is this guy a jerk or something? It’s obvious you don’t like him. What did he do? What’s going on?”

Finn frowned. “It’s not obvious,” he said. “I don’t… not like him. I don’t even know him, he just moved in last night.”

“Then tell me about him. What little you know.”

“He’s… I don’t know,” he said. “He’s not going to be very popular, I don’t think.”

Quinn’s eyes widened, then narrowed in on him. “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” he said quickly, slamming his locker shut. “Look, I have to go home. There’s a lot of stuff to do, and, I have to go. I’m sorry. I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

Finn felt bad rushing away from her, but he just really didn’t want to have that conversation right now. He felt weird enough about Kurt, and he didn’t think he could handle talking Quinn down if she decided that Finn’s new attachment might ruin their chances for prom or something.

This whole thing was a giant mess.

* * *

His stuff was piled on the living room floor when he got home. It looked like someone had maybe started to sort through it but then abandoned it. No one was anywhere to be seen, but he heard movement in the kitchen, so he banged through the door. He could just picture his closet downstairs now completely filled up with all of Kurt’s weird things.

Kurt was in there, chopping carrots, and Finn scowled at him before he could help himself.

“Bad day?” Kurt asked flippantly.

“No,” he said. “Yes. Where’s my mom? My stuff’s just lying out here.”

“I thought they wanted you to go through it,” Kurt replied. “Burt was sorting a few things when I got home, but he told your mom they had some stuff to discuss, so I put all the groceries away, then hung my stuff up and unpacked a little downstairs. They were still in the bedroom when I came back up.”

“Oh,” Finn said.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Kurt began, and Finn bristled and prepared himself to start minding, “but I moved some of your stuff around in the bathroom to make room for some of my stuff. I threw away some empty bottles, and I put some stuff that looked like it hadn’t been used since the Clinton era under the sink, and I just moved everything else to the right side of the sink. I took the left side, and some more of the room underneath.”

“What about the closet?” Finn asked. 

“I hung a lot of my stuff up, and definitely utilized the floor space, but I’m only using fifty percent of it. I measured. The rest of my stuff is in my suitcases, I can just use them until – I think your mom said something about getting me a bureau.”

“Well, okay,” Finn said. “Don’t throw away any of my stuff anymore though, okay? Even if it looks like junk. It could’ve been like, a collectible or something.”

Kurt looked like he wanted to argue, but just ended up nodding instead. Finn, not wanting to deal with the pile in the living room, went downstairs to check it out. Kurt was right; the closet looked exactly half full, and all his stuff was still on the counter in the bathroom, even if it was all off to the side. He looked at Kurt’s area, and winced at all of the strange bottles, some with suspicious flowers on the labels. Looking around some more, he was also pretty sure Kurt had done some cleaning in the bathroom too, which was weird, because his mom had cleaned it up a couple of days ago, and it had looked good, but now it looked gleaming, and kind of super-white. Finn wasn’t sure if he minded or not- it was weird to have someone other than your mother cleaning your bathroom for you, even if he had made sure nothing embarrassing was lying around. And he didn’t really see why things weren’t clean enough before – did Kurt have some sort of certifiable cleaning disorder, like Ms. Pillsbury?

When Finn got back upstairs, his parents were sitting on the couch in the living room, ignoring his pile, and talking to Kurt.

“Finn,” his mother said, eyes lighting up when she saw him. “Burt and I made a decision, and we have news! I think you’ll think it’s good news.”

“We’re not building an extension on the house,” Burt put in, looking happy, like this was the best decision ever.

“What? Why? You… how is that good news? That’s horrible news!” Finn cried.

It must have come out harsher than he intended, because all of a sudden, his parents were frowning at him, instead of looking excited. And Kurt was upset too, eyes wide, and face full of hurt, and Finn didn’t understand that at all, because didn’t a new addition mean more room for all of his stuff? Shouldn’t he be as unhappy as Finn was that they weren’t getting it? Why was he looking at Finn like he was the bad guy for arguing for what both of them wanted?

“We’re going to buy a whole new house, boys,” his mother told them. “Burt talked to the contractor this morning, but there’s only so much that can be added on, and it’s a good time to buy; we’ll be able to find something much bigger.We talked about it, and decided that we can afford it. I’m sorry to ask you to move twice in less than a year Finn, but – we thought this would be a good thing, for everyone.” She and Burt exchanged nervous glances, both now apparently worried how their temperamental sons would take the news.

“Oh,” Finn said. “That’s good. Sorry, I guess I… overreacted.”

“It’s okay,” his mom smiled at him. “I know we’ve said you boys deserve your own rooms, and we’ll make it happen as soon as we can, okay?”

“Okay,” Finn replied.

“Okay?” Burt asked Kurt.

“Whatever,” Kurt said with a shrug, still looking a little upset. “I mean, it doesn’t… it’s good, I guess. Okay.”

“Good.” Burt turned his attention to Finn. Since we’re going to have a lot more room soon, what do you say we just move this stuff to the garage for now? I’m sure we can find temporary space for it.”

“Okay,” Finn agreed, and the two of them started lugging it out. There were, Finn could admit, now that it was all laid out in front of him, more than a few things that could probably be trashed, that could’ve been trashed before he moved them from his old house, but no one was forcing him to make that decision now, and he wasn’t going to.

When they finally finished, Finn escaped to his room to play GTA for an hour or so, until he got hungry, and wandered back upstairs. He found his mother in the kitchen, along with the wonderful smells of re-heating chicken. “We had a lot of leftovers,” his mother said. “And maybe you and I can have some of that chocolate cake tonight.” 

“Okay,” he said. “But what about Kurt? It was really awkward last night. Are you making something boring and healthy for him?”

“No,” she said, “Burt’s actually taking him out tonight. You know, a male bonding sort of thing. They’re going to go to Vinnie’s Sports Grill, and watch the game.”

“Oh,” Finn said, feeling like a lead weight had dropped into his stomach. Burt used to love to take him out to Vinnie’s for “male bonding” time. He supposed it was the sort of thing guys like Burt did with their… sons.

And, it wasn’t like Finn was stupid, it wasn’t like he didn’t understand. Burt was Kurt’s father, he hadn’t seen him in 16 years, and sure, they needed to spend some time one-on-one. 

But Vinnie’s was where he took Finn, because Finn like their onion rings so much, and it was something they did together, practically every other week, and he was sure Kurt was going to hate it (which was frankly a sucker bet, since Kurt seemed to hate a lot of things), and they were going to have an awful time, and Kurt would ruin it. Just like the chocolate cake, and how Finn wasn’t even really excited about it today. Then Burt wouldn’t want to bring either of them back there. 

Was this the way it was going to be from now on? Burt would bring just Kurt out places, for bonding, or maybe he’d bring them both out, but he probably wouldn’t bring just Finn out anymore. Since that would be weird, right? Bringing just your step-son out, and leaving your real son at home. Even if your real son would probably like to be left alone. Because your real son hates greasy food, and probably hates competitive sports.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked his mom. “I don’t think Kurt would enjoy watching a basketball game. He might be bored or something.”

“Don’t be silly, Finn,” his mom told him. “He said last night that he went to basketball games at his school all the time.”

“He said he went to watch his boyfriend,” Finn said. “That’s completely different.”

“Oh.” His mom paused, considering. “Well, that’s up to Burt and Kurt. They’ll have to find things they like to do together. But I know Burt wants to take Kurt tonight. It’s apparently an important game.”

“I know,” Finn said. “That’s why we have extra salsa and baked nachos in the cupboard, remember? You got them because Burt and I were going to stay in tonight, and watch the game here, after supper.”

His mother looked at him in surprise, and furrowed her brow. “That’s right, I forgot,” she said. “That was before we got the call – hey Finn, c’mon, come back here,” she called.

“It’s fine, mom,” he said, heading out of the kitchen, and opening the door to his – _their_ room. “Fried chicken sounds great. Call me when it’s ready.”

* * *

Finn managed to die 28 times in Call of Duty before his mom called him back up. “Put a couple plates out?” she asked him, after he had stumbled back up the stairs.

Burt came in as he was getting the plates. He had a sour, kind of frown-y look on his face, the same one he had on most of dinner last night, and most of breakfast this morning. Finn had never really seen that look before Kurt moved in. “Is he still on the phone out there?” he asked Finn’s mom, gesturing to the backyard. “Goddamnit, he’s going to use up all of his minutes on the first day!”

His mom shrugged. “It’s his choice,” she said evenly.

As Finn and his mom sat down to their chicken, Burt called out the back for Kurt, then fumed quietly as Kurt asked for a minute to say goodbye, and then didn’t come in for another six. When Kurt did come in, his eyes flitted to the fried chicken, then landed questioningly on his father. “We’re going out tonight,” Burt told him. “Just the two of us.”

Kurt put a hand against the button-down shirt he was wearing. “Do you want me to dress up?” he asked hesitantly.

“No, but you should probably dress down,” Burt said. “It’s more of a casual place, a jeans place.”

“I should be good,” Kurt said. “Thank you.”

“Have fun, boys,” his mom said with a cheery smile and wave as they went out the door.

“Thanks,” Burt said, before closing the door behind them. As soon as the lock clicked, Finn watched the smile slide off his mom’s face. She sighed, and almost looked unhappy as she gazed down at the plate of chicken in front of her.

“I just want everything to go well tonight,” she explained, when she saw Finn staring at her. “It would be nice if they could, you know, start getting along. Kurt really is a nice boy. I think we had a good shopping trip today.”

“That’s nice,” Finn said, because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to. He wondered what all they had bought.

They ate their dinner more quietly than normal. When he was done, Finn jumped up to put his plate in the sink, his mind already on going downstairs and turning on the game, on getting more time in by himself before Kurt came back, and he had to share his space again. 

But his mom had other ideas. “Wait, Finn,” she called after him. “Do you want to stay up here with me tonight, and watch some TV? Or play cards, we haven’t played cards together in a long time.”

Finn couldn’t really say no to that, so he ended up losing three rounds of gin rummy before turning on the big-screen to watch the game with his mom. She didn’t last very long watching it, she never did, but she did bring out the salsa and nachos he was supposed to be sharing with Burt, and ate a couple with him before giving up.

“Thank you for playing cards with me,” she said, and she looked happy. “I promise, next time we’ll choose a different game. Enjoy your salsa.”

It wasn’t that long after his mom had given up, that Kurt and Burt came home, neither trying to hide the pissed-off looks on their faces. Kurt stormed downstairs without a word. Burt did a little double-take at the sight of Finn, and the salsa and the chips, and the game, and came over to sit with him, letting the anger fall off his face, but keeping a look of sadness, even though their team was up by 20 points.

“I’m sorry you had to come back early,” Finn offered.

“I’m sorry…” Burt said. “I’m sorry; we had plans tonight, didn’t we?”

“Just to watch the game,” Finn said. “I understand. You had to go try male-bonding with Kurt. I understand. It’s important.”

“Yeah,” Burt sighed. 

“But, I mean… I don’t think Vinnie’s is really Kurt’s thing? I could have told you that before you left tonight, but…” Finn trailed off, not sure he should finish, not sure he even should have started this conversation.

“I know,” Burt said quietly. “I… I knew that before we left too. I just- I had hoped.”

“But it didn’t go so good,” Finn asked quietly. “I mean, beside the fact that you both look… not-happy… you, you’re back way early.”

“He didn’t eat,” Burt said, sounding flabbergasted. “I didn’t ask him to eat the wings or anything – they have salads there, they have wraps there – hell, I had a wrap – but he just, nothing. Bottled water, that’s it. And when the game came on, he just stared at the salt shaker.”

They sat in silence for a minute. “I’m sorry,” Finn said again, not knowing what else to say.

“No, I’m sorry, I mean it,” Burt told him. “Like I said, I knew it was a bad idea. I knew he wouldn’t have a good time. I shouldn’t have dragged him there in the hopes of… I knew it wouldn’t work. I shouldn’t have blown you off like that.”

“I understand,” Finn said again, and he didn’t really, but he did get how hard this was for Burt, and he didn’t want to make it any harder. “Here, I saved you some chips and salsa, plus there’s still over 10 minutes left on the clock.”

“Thanks,” Burt said, and he grabbed some chips and sat back, and they started talking about the game, and it was almost normal.

“Thanks,” Burt said again, when the game was over and they had turned off the TV and cleaned up, and Finn was about to brave going downstairs, hoping Kurt was already asleep. He patted Finn on the back, and smiled, but that same sad look that had mostly lifted when they were watching the game was back again.

“It’s okay,” Finn told him, still not knowing exactly what to say. “It’s okay.”

* * *

While Kurt hadn’t been looking forward to Monday, to going to Finn’s school and discovering all the ways it failed compared to his old school, by the end of the weekend he was ready to give it a shot just to get out of that house for a while. Everything was awkward, and it was starting to get unbearable.

Really, it was starting to hurt. And he didn’t need any more hurt, thank you very much. He was still trying to cope with the fact that he could only talk to his friends, to Adrian, on the phone. On a phone with a limited amount of minutes. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that his mother was alone in jail, that she might have to be in jail for a long time, and that no one would even let him see her.

So he didn’t also need the stress of dealing with the Hudson-Hummels, and how freaked out they all were by him. He didn’t need the hurt of Finn being so obviously unhappy about sharing his room, of having to spend time with him. 

Whenever Finn was around Kurt, he acted so skittish, and the one time he asked if Kurt wanted to try a video game with him, he looked as nervous as a seventh grader asking someone out for the first time. Kurt wanted to play video games with Finn about as much as he suspected Finn actually wanted to play with him, so he politely declined, and Finn was smart enough not to ask again. 

Still, at least Finn had made the attempt. After the disastrous dinner on Friday, Burt hadn’t tried again, not to do anything but say “pass the salt,” and “you better find a more suitable outfit to wear for your first day at school tomorrow.”

Things could be worse – Burt could be actually trying to bond again – but, still.

It hurt.

The man had spent years looking for him, and probably a lot of money too, since apparently private detectives were involved, but the minute he laid eyes on Kurt, it was all ‘well, we’ll try for two dinner’s worth, and if he still isn’t straight by then, whatever. I can spend Sunday afternoon playing foosball with Finn.’

It shouldn’t hurt, really. His father _didn’t matter_ and it _didn’t matter_ what he thought. He didn’t like his father either, so really, what was his opinion worth? Frankly, he had given up on Burt years ago, before he even knew what his father’s name was.

* * *

_She was smiling at him, but she looked sad. Kurt hated it when his mom looked sad. He told her he was sorry, but she just shook her head and said that there wasn’t anything to be sorry about. But he did feel sorry, and he felt guilty. His mother never liked to talk about his father, and he knew that. She had never told him anything about him, not even when he was in third grade and needed to make a family tree for school. She had just told him that she was his only family, she was all the family he needed, and if the teacher had a problem with that, then they could just take it up with her._

_He had theories – his father was dead, his father was in jail, his father was a mad scientist, and he was some sort of weird test tube baby – but he never shared them with his mom. He never tried to talk about his father at all, not before tonight. It wasn’t even a special night, just a simple dinner at home followed by curling up on the couch, and watching a rerun of Project Runway._

_But he had asked, because he couldn’t not ask anymore, and his mom had seen that, and shut the TV off, and turned to look at him._

_She told him that she understood his curiosity. She had almost seemed to look through him, as though she was talking to someone else when she said that she was probably horrible for telling him this, but she didn’t really have a choice, and he wouldn’t understand otherwise. He’d probably try and go looking for his father someday, otherwise, and he shouldn’t, shouldn’t do that because it would just break his heart. Her eyes snapped from that faraway place they were in and met his, and she grasped him firmly by his arms. With tears in her eyes, she described his father, how he was a homophobe, and back in high school he had called people horrible names, and he and his buddies had played horrible pranks on people they merely suspected of being gay. He had thrown paint at people, ripped up their books, even put cow dung in someone’s locker once. Because he thought they were gay. Because they might have been gay, like Kurt was gay, and she didn’t want him around that, not for a second._

_Kurt didn’t know what to say to any of this; it was like she was describing his own worst nightmares of what he thought High School might be like, like she was describing the type of person who was Kurt’s own boogieman. He was prepared for finding out that his father was dead, or even that he was some sort of criminal bank-robbing mastermind. But not this, not something that was specific to him. Maybe if he had been a different child, he would have been able to know his father, but he wasn’t a different child – he was Kurt._

_He asked his mother what his father knew about him, because his mom knew that he was different, special, from a young age… but he didn’t have_ any _memory of his father, so maybe he didn’t know. And his mother had told him that yes, we split up when you were a baby, and that she got full custody, and moved away – though she never, never told him where she had moved away from – and that his father didn’t know anything about him. But she was telling him this, to explain why she had never try to reestablish ties, to explain that she never wanted him to get too curious, and try to search him out. “He doesn’t matter,” she told Kurt, pulling him against her in a hug. “He doesn’t matter at all, and you should just forget about him.”_

_And Kurt, cradled against her chest, nodded in assent._

* * *

Honestly, he was just as guilty of avoiding Burt, probably more so. There was absolutely no reason to be upset.

Carole had gone out and gotten a bureau for him on Saturday morning, so he could unpack and sort and resort his stuff. It gave him a great excuse to hide downstairs, where he only had to face Finn and his video games.

Carole had called him up both Saturday and Sunday afternoon, deciding to bond with him by having him help her cook healthy dinners. And it was horrible, if only because it was a great idea. Kurt loved cooking. He liked the challenge of cooking healthy food, and still making it delicious. And he loved cooking with his mom.

Carole wasn’t his mom, but it was so easy to fall into a comfortable, familiar pattern, to enjoy himself and to relish conversation that wasn’t stilted and uncomfortable. To be with someone who seemed to like his company. He found himself grateful for it, and he did not want to be grateful. He didn’t want to bond with Carole, he didn’t want to cook with her, and he didn’t want to see that damned pleased smile she got every time he forgot himself enough to start enjoying what they were doing.

She was still trying, she wanted him to be happy, but that was almost as stressful as his father’s approach. And he didn’t know what to do, short of being outright rude and snotty, which he was about five seconds away from trying.

So, yeah. Maybe it was time to give school a try.

Kurt tried to maintain some sense of optimism through Sunday night, but it was hard when he was laying out his planned outfit, and Finn, who tried to talk to him as little as possible, told him that he better bring a change of clothes.

“I’m not bringing a change of clothes, Finn,” Kurt had said, affronted. “I’m proud of my stylistic choices, and I can’t wait to share them with McKinley.”

“Uhh… okay,” Finn had replied. "I’m just saying, you’re probably going to get slushied at some point tomorrow, and you’re going to want some dry clothes to change into.”

At that point, Kurt had made the mistake of asking exactly what Finn had meant by “slushied,” and had gotten a detailed answer. Finn had seemed to feel that he’d have less chance of being slushied if he’d maybe choose a different outfit, and also maybe put that rainbow zipper tag back on his suitcase, instead of leaving it on his messenger bag, where everyone could see it.

Kurt took Finn’s advice about the extra clothes, but ignored the rest of it. He was Kurt Wickham, and he was fabulous. He wasn’t going to change for anyone.

* * *

He wasn’t expecting this.

He was expecting to get slushied, based on what Finn said. He was expecting intolerance and jeers, based on some of his own life experience. He was even expecting maybe a little physical violence… people pushing him into lockers? People tripping him? Based on stereotypes of mid-western small towns, and his own worst fears.

But the worst thing that happened to him that day, happened before the school bell rang, before his father had finished registering him, before he had even stepped more than 20 feet into that school.

“Wait,” he said. “Wait, that’s not right.”

He really should have been expecting it. Based on logic, based on knowing Burt for more than a day.

“That’s not my name. My name’s Kurt Wickham, you can’t just change it!”

“I’m not changing it,” Burt told him, in a slow, frustrated voice, as though he’d been dealing with Kurt all weekend, instead of hiding in front of the TV and ignoring him. “I’m registering you with your birth certificate, Kurt – your actual one. That’s your name, Kurt Hummel is your _name_ ; she’s the one who changed it.” He nodded at the secretary, who was following the conversation with a little too much interest. As she excused herself over to the copy machine, Kurt turned to face his father straight on, knowing that the writing was on the wall, but refusing to give up.

“But Wickham’s my mother’s name, and it’s always been my name, and you can’t just expect me to accept something else, it’s part of my identity,” he told Burt, trying to keep his voice firm but soft; they didn’t need anyone else eavesdropping in on his personal business.

“Wickham is not your mother’s name,” Burt told him roughly. “Your mother’s maiden name was Adams. And you have not always gone by that name either, that’s just the fake name she put on all of her fake papers after she _kidnapped you_ and ran away.” 

Kurt took a step back, and shook his head. “No,” he said, “No- Adams? That’s not – she never said any… She never even mentioned that name to me.”

Burt sighed. “Look, kid,” he said, and his voice was softer, finally sympathetic. “I know this is all hard for you. She must have told you so many lies, about god knows what. But this isn’t something you can… this is your legal name.” Kurt just shook his head, and Burt sighed again. “Stubbornness ain’t going to get you anywhere on this, son,” he said, and they waited in silence as the secretary finished processing his forms, handed him his schedule, and introduced them to Ms. Pillsbury, who was going to show him around, and take him to his first class. “Try to have a nice day,” Burt finally told him, when it was time to go. “Be polite to the teachers, and don’t make waves just to make waves. Carole or I will pick you up in front of the office at 2:30; Finn has Glee club today, so he’ll drive himself home after.”

Ms. Pillsbury promised Burt they’d take good care of him, and he thanked her and left. Kurt only half-listened as she chattered at him through the halls, showing him where the gym and the auditorium and the choir room were, before they arrived at his first period class, where she happily introduced him to an indifferent teacher and his bored-looking class. Kurt slunk to his seat and stared at his desk, trying to process things, and letting the teacher and her ramblings on Animal Farm turn to white noise in the background.

* * *

By lunch, Kurt had gotten a lot of stares, and a lot of looks that had turned hostile quickly, but seeing as no one had said so much as boo to him, he figured he was getting off easy so far. As soon as he picked out a suitable lunch from the offerings (and really, weren’t there national standards on school lunches? How in the world were the nutritional levels so different here, compared to where he grew up?) he tried to decide what to do.

His first instinct was to try and find a table alone, where no one would harass him. But, that wasn’t really him. He had never hidden himself away in a corner before, and he wasn’t exactly in the in-crowd at his old school, but he always had tons of friends, always had someone to chat and giggle with at lunchtime or during study halls, or in the middle of class if it was one of the less observant teachers. He had never stepped back and assumed his company wasn’t welcome. He never had reason to.

So when he caught sight of an Asian girl with cool blue streaks in her hair sitting at a table that still had half of the chairs open, he clutched his lunch tray tight, marched over there, and tried to say “Hi, I’m new- do you guys mind if I sit here?” without letting his voice waver. He mostly succeeded.

The girl looked up and blinked at him confusedly for a few seconds, then gave him a small, shy smile. “Sure,” she said, looking around at the other members of their small group. “Have a seat. My name’s Tina.”

“I’m Kurt.”

“This is my boyfriend, Mike,” Tina continued, gesturing at the skinny Asian boy next to her. He threw a hand up in a wave. “This is Mercedes, Brittany, and…” a boy with thick glasses and a sweater-vest wheeled up to them. “That’s Artie,” she concluded, as Brittany abandoned her chair to take a seat in Artie’s lap. “Artie, this is Kurt. He’s new.”

“New today?” Brittany asked, looking curiously at him.

“Yeah,” Kurt said. “This is my first day.” He turned to Mercedes, who seemed to be the best-dressed person he’d seen at the school so far, other than himself of course. “I really like that shirt, by the way.”

“Thanks,” she said, then gave his outfit a once-over. “You… seem to have it going’ on yourself, fashion-wise.”

 _Damn straight I do,_ he thought, and carefully dug in to his food.

“So, is there any word?” Artie asked the rest of the group.

“No,” Mike grumbled. “It looks like it’s not going to happen.”

“They’re all in the Academic Decathlon,” Mercedes told him, “But they can’t go to the competition next week, because they don’t have the money.”

“Yeah, the school won’t pay for it,” Mike said, sounding bitter.

“We’re trying to sell taffy, but it’s not working.” Artie said. “Hey, do you want to buy some taffy?” 

“Er, no, sorry,” Kurt said, almost shuddering at the thought of what that would do to his teeth. “I don’t have any money right now.”

“No, that’s cool,” Artie assured him, with a glum look on his face. “It’s not going to happen anyway.”

“That sucks,” Kurt commiserated. “I mean, you guys made it onto the Academic Decathlon team, you must be some of the smartest kids at this school – the administration should absolutely be supporting you.”

“That’s right!” Tina said.

“Hey guys,” Brittany said, “Do you think Kurt might be Finn’s new brother?”

An awkward silence reigned at the table.

“Because Finn’s new brother was supposed to start here today, and this is Kurt’s first day,” she continued.

“I, um,” Tina started, sounding embarrassed.

“Yes,” Kurt told the table. “Finn is my new step-brother, I just came here from Seattle. What has he said about me?” Kurt wondered whether news of Finn’s expanding family was hot gossip all over school, or whether these people he had taken a chance on and thought he was connecting with, were actually friends of his step-brother who were humoring him.

“Nothing much,” Tina said. “Just, you know, you were, ah, kidnapped by your cr- mother, and grew up in Seattle, and now you’re back with your father. He didn’t tell us anything about you in particular.”

“Yeah,” Brittany said. “He didn’t tell us you were gay.”

More awkward silence, which Artie broke. “Brittany,” he said with an apologetic look at Kurt, “You’re not supposed to, you know, assume things about people.”

“But he’s totally gay,” Brittany argued.

“No, she’s right, I’m totally gay,” Kurt agreed, thinking that Brittany might be the least tactful person at the table, but at least she wasn’t saying it meanly, and didn’t look uncomfortable, unlike everyone else. “It’s okay, I’m not in the closet or anything. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Right, sorry,” Tina said, giving him a small smile again. “Like Artie said, we didn’t want to assume.”

“Right,” Kurt said. “So, how do you guys know Finn?”

“We’re all in New Directions together,” Mercedes told him.

“New Directions?” Kurt asked.

“The glee club,” Artie said.

“Oh. Right. Congratulations,” Kurt said. “Finn’s mom said that you guys were going to the national champions this year.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, and at least the awkwardness had seemed to pass, for everyone else, at least. “New York City!”

“That’s great,” Kurt said. “Listen, thank you guys so much for letting me sit here, it was nice to meet you.” He gathered up his tray with its barely eaten food, and stood up. “I hate to ditch, but that Guidance Counselor, Ms. Pillsbury, she wanted to meet with me before my next class.” It was a lie, of course, but Kurt couldn’t sit there any more without bitterness bubbling up. These _were_ nice people. And he might’ve wanted to be friends with them. If they weren’t Finn’s friends first. If they weren’t all members of Finn’s glee club. He threw his trash away, and headed out into the hallway, figuring he might kill some time in the library, before finding his way to French class.

But he didn’t make it too far down the hall before being stopped in his tracks by an impossibly large boy with a sneering face and a plastic cup in his hand. “Welcome to McKinley, _fag_ ,” he said, and hurled the drink right in Kurt’s face.

* * *

It was awful. The ice was hard and thrown against his face with unnecessarily excessive force. It was cold, wet, sticky, and it got _everywhere_. He scurried to the bathroom, glad that it was the middle of a period, and there were few students around to witness his humiliation, and his stained, no-longer-impeccable outfit.

He changed into his second outfit, but couldn’t rinse all of the red out of his first outfit, or make his hair acceptable again. He finally gave up when the bell rang, and headed out to his next class. _Keep your head up_ , he told himself, as he walked through the halls, now filled with people again. _You can do this. Don’t let them get to you. Don’t let them see they got to you_. There were so many people around now None of them were friendly. He wished he wasn’t here. He wished he was in Seattle, heading to English Lit with Mei-Ling. He wished he was at home, his real home, curled up in a ball under the covers, with Adrian there to comfort him. With his mom right downstairs-

“Outta my way, homo,” a boy called, shoving him into the locker on his right. Kurt spared a few seconds to glare at the back of the retreating boy’s head, and then continued on down the hallway to his class.

The second time he was slushied was worse than the first. It was just as cold, just as wet and sticky, but this time, he didn’t have a spare set of clothes to change into.

As he made his way to the bathroom once again, wondering what he was going to do, especially with about 30 seconds left until his class, he heard a voice call out. “Hey- Kurt?” He turned around to see Tina and Mercedes looking at him sympathetically.

“Looks like they got you pretty good,” Mercedes said. “Here – we’ll help you wash it off.”

“Okay,” Kurt agreed, letting them lead him to the bathroom. “Thanks.”

“Did you bring a change of clothes?” Tina asked. “I always keep one in my locker.”

“That was my change of clothes,” Kurt admitted. “They got me earlier today.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Finn warned me I might be slushied, but I guess I wasn’t really expecting it,” Kurt admitted. “I mean, nothing like this ever happened at my old school, not to me, not to anyone. You both get slushied a lot too?”

“Yeah,” Mercedes confirmed as she sat in him in front of the sink and proceeded to wash out his hair. “Well, not this often,” she said after she finished. “It’s only been once every couple of weeks lately. And I’ve never gotten it twice in one day.”

“Do you ever go to administration about it?”

“No!” Tina said, swiping at his shirt ineffectually with wet paper towels. “Nonononono. They’re completely ineffectual, and it just gets the jocks even more mad at you.”

“Oh,” Kurt said quietly. “I don’t- I don’t get this school. I’m pretty sure I know why I’m getting slushied, but, why would anyone do that to you guys? I don’t get this school at all.”

“The in-crowd always picks on the outsiders,” Mercedes said. “Though honestly, I was pretty much left alone, before I joined glee.”

“Yeah, the glee club gets it a lot,” Tina agreed. “I was getting it before I joined, but it didn’t help at all. Though having a group to empathize with, and help you out is always good. It stopped bothering me so much.” 

“Like I said, I don’t get it,” Kurt said. “Isn’t the glee club kind of cool here? Aren’t you guys going to New York for nationals?”

“Yeah,” Mercedes said with a little laugh. “No one cares about that. No one but us anyway.”

“Well, I think it’s cool,” Kurt said. “I was in chorus back in Seattle, but we weren’t near good enough to make it in any major competitions.”

“Oh,” Mercedes said. “You sing?”

“I used to,” Kurt said. “Hey, I was wondering… Finn told me about the slushy thing last night, but he was pretty vague. Has – has he ever been slushied? I mean, he’s a jock, but he’s also in glee club.”

“He doesn’t get it as much anymore,” Tina said. She was now wiping at him ineffectually with dry paper towels. “Not since the football team actually started winning. He really got it last year, when they were losing every game, and people thought he was the father of Quinn’s baby.”

“Oh,” Kurt said. “Isn’t Quinn his girlfriend?”

Tina gave him a wry smile. “We’ll tell you all about it, but on the way to class, okay? I think we’re late enough already.”

* * *

Finn didn’t get through fourth period that day before he started hearing the whispers and sneers about the new gay kid. By the time Glee came around, two puck heads had already asked him if the “fag” was the new member of “Gay Directions,” but they were just going for the cheap joke, and didn’t seem to know that the gay kid was his new brother – was the boy he was now sharing a bedroom with. He was lucky so far; he hadn’t told anyone outside glee that he was getting a new brother, and apparently Kurt was not marching around loudly proclaiming that he was living with Finn Hudson.

But of course, that luck couldn’t hold; when he arrived in the choir room after school everyone else was already there, huddled up and talking. They broke apart when he came in, some staring guiltily, some speculatively.

“Hey,” Mercedes said. “I met your new step-brother today.”

“Oh?” he asked, extra casually.

“Yeah,” she said, as she shot him an unreadable look. “He seemed like he was having a hard time.”

“He got slushied twice,” Tina put in.

“Oh,” he said again. “I tried to warn him about that. Slushies you know, they can be brutal.”

“Finn,” Rachel said, and Finn tried not to actually physically cringe, “You should have told me in particular that your new step-brother is gay. I have a unique insight into the situation, especially seeing the tribulations my dads deal with on a regular basis.”

“Er –” Finn said.

“In fact, you should have invited me over this past weekend so we could have met each other ahead of time, but that’s okay, because I’m free to come over today –”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Quinn interrupted icily.

“Maybe I’ll introduce you during school tomorrow,” Finn told her, sitting quickly in the empty chair next to Quinn. “Or maybe before school,” he amended. “Sometime. But I think we’re busy tonight.”

Luckily for him, Mr. Schuster chose that moment to come in, and Rachel seemed inclined to let the topic drop in favor of several new song suggestions. He and Quinn ducked out quickly after class was over.

“Can I come over tomorrow?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said, and she looked mad. She had looked mad all through Glee practice. It was not like he didn’t know why. A gay step-brother wasn’t exactly going to help his rep, and she was counting on his popularity to carry them to winning prom king and queen. 

But he just couldn’t deal with that right now, not with so many other things going on. “Please?” he asked. “Things are really… tense at home right now.” Her face softened a little, and she nodded her assent. “Thanks,” he said, and kissed her quickly on the lips before getting in his Navigator. 

When he got home, he found Burt sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. He debated going downstairs, or maybe just turning right around and heading outside for a while, but eventually sucked it up and sat next to him. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry, I heard Kurt had a hard time at school today.”

Burt grunted and lifted his head. “Wouldn’t give me any details about it, but yeah. He obviously didn’t have a good day. I guess I wasn’t expecting anything different. Especially when I saw what he was wearing this morning. Jesus Christ, he doesn’t like to make it easy on anybody, does he?”

“I guess not,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, you know, I don’t have any classes with him, we didn’t see each other. Not that I know what I could do anyway.”

“I know, Finn,” Burt said. “I’d love to just ask you to watch out for him, but I know how complicated it is. Don’t worry, it’s not your problem.”

 _But it is_ , Finn thought.

* * *

On Tuesday, Kurt got slushied three times.

On Tuesday, Mike told him that Kurt was sitting at their lunch table, and that he seemed pretty cool.

* * *

On Wednesday, Kurt got slushied twice, and someone wrote “No Fagz” on his locker.

On Wednesday, Finn wondered why Santana wasn’t cracking on him or Kurt, or the gay issue, or the living-together issue. On Wednesday, he asked her, and then mentally kicked himself for mentioning the living-together issue. She shrugged and informed him she already had a full schedule of taunts to deliver. Then she insulted his nipples.

* * *

On Thursday, Kurt got slushied twice, and Finn overheard Azimio laughing and describing how he and Karofsky had given Kurt a “mega-swirlie,” which, Finn did not even want to know.

On Thursday, Sam Evans came over to their house, because he and Kurt had partnered up in history class to work on a project together. His mom and Burt, who knew Sam from both football and Glee, looked almost pathetically happy when he came over, and Burt mouthed “Thank you” at Finn, even though he hadn’t known about it. When he opened the basement door and started to walk down, he overheard Kurt apologizing to Sam, because apparently Sam had gotten slushied after some of the jocks found out that they had agreed to work together.

* * *

On Friday, Kurt was supposed to study in the library after school, and let Finn take him home after glee. On Friday, on his way to glee, Finn saw a commotion outside, and with a sinking feeling, went out to see a group of boys in letterman jackets preparing to toss an impeccably dressed boy into the dumpsters.

Even though it was Friday, the fifth day of Kurt being at his school, the Glee club members were still, miraculously, the only ones who knew that he and Kurt were step-brothers.

So on Friday, Finn forced himself to back up, turn around, and head to the choir room.

* * *

“Are you okay, man?” Puck asked him when he came in the room, and no, he really wasn’t. He just stood there and shook his head.

“Finn?” Mr. Shue asked. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Kurt’s having a really hard time,” he blurted out, and Mr. Shue patted him on the shoulder comfortingly, and that wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve any sympathy; he wasn’t the one going through everything. He was just the coward who ran away.

“We should sing him a song to show our support,” Rachel said excitedly. 

Santana gave a mean laugh at that and shook her head. “That boy’s going to need more than the power of song to improve his life,” she said. “He’s going to need a really big closet, is what he’s going to need.”

“He’s really nice,” Tina said. “It’s not fair.”

“When has this school ever been fair?” Mercedes asked. “This school sucks. I know the only reason we make it through okay is cause of this club.” She looked at Finn. “Kurt’s an outsider like us, and I know he’s interested in singing, because he told me he used to sing at his old school. Do you know why he doesn’t want to join?”

“I need to go,” Finn said, and realized his hands were shaking now. “I- I need to go. I’m sorry.” He turned to Mr. Schue. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay? Please?” Mr. Schue nodded, and Finn bolted from the room.

Kurt was pulling himself out of the dumpster when Finn made it back outside. “I’m sorry,” he told Kurt. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your problem,” Kurt told him, a composed, indifferent look on his face as he brushed something disgusting off of his stained shirt. 

“But it’s not fair,” Finn said, and it almost came out as a whisper. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

“Take me back to the house?” Kurt asked. “I know you have Glee club right now, but–” and an almost desperate look broke through his indifferent mask for a moment. “I really need a shower.”

“Okay,” Finn said. “Okay, whatever you want. Let’s go home.”

* * *

Luckily, neither parent was home when Finn and Kurt got back. They both immediately headed down to the basement, and Kurt grabbed his robe and went into the bathroom without looking at Finn. Finn sat down on his bed and _thought_.

He still didn’t know what to do. He still didn’t want anyone – anyone outside of glee, of course – to know the truth about the whole brothers thing, but he didn’t think that would hurt Kurt’s feelings anyway. It would certainly bring unwanted heat and attention on him, but wouldn’t pull any of it off Kurt. But then… He couldn’t be so afraid he completely avoided Kurt, not anymore. Kurt needed him – and he needed to step up and be a good brother, the kind Burt wanted him to be.

As he decided this, Kurt began to sing from the shower. He sang kind of like a girl, which made sense, since he talked kind of like a girl too. He started off softer, so that Finn had to strain to hear, but his voice soon turned louder and stronger, singing a vaguely familiar song about climbing mountains and following rainbows. And as Kurt sang the last, high notes, Finn could tell, even through the muffling of the running water, and bathroom door, that Kurt was good. Like, really good. 

Finn felt a twisting in his gut.

Kurt stayed in the bathroom for a while after the water turned off, but Finn stayed and waited, trying to muster up his courage. When he finally came out of the bathroom, wrapped up in his towel, Kurt hesitated momentarily, looking surprised to see Finn still seated there. Which was fair; Finn usually cleared out of the room whenever Kurt was doing anything shower-related, just like Kurt was never in the room whenever Finn stepped out.

“We should talk,” Finn said.

Kurt ignored him, and went over to the closet. “There isn’t much to talk about, is there?” Kurt finally said, bringing a handful of clothes back to the bathroom, and shutting the door behind him.

Finn waited until he came out again. Kurt was now dressed in some jeans and a light blue T-shirt, nothing as fancy as either of the outfits he had worn at school that day. Finn really didn’t understand him, but he knew well enough that any clothes suggestions would go over really poorly, so instead he blurted out “I think you should join the New Directions.”

Kurt shook his head and looked irritated. “You don’t want me to do that.”

“I really do,” Finn said. “They’re really good people, you know that already. Glee’s… it’s kind of a place where people can be different. Be themselves. I think you’d like that. Besides, you’re a really good singer. I didn’t know that. You could really help us at Nationals.”

Kurt shook his head again. “You don’t want me to join your glee club, Finn,” he said stiffly. “I understand that, okay? The less we’re associated together at school, the better off you are.”

“I don’t want it to be like that,” Finn said, trying to sound sure of himself. Trying to _be_ sure of himself. “I want to help you. I know I did a bad job of it this week, but I really do want to help.”

“You don’t have to help me,” Kurt told him, and he was starting to sound almost angry.

“Of course I do,” Finn replied, frustrated. “We’re brothers. I’m supposed to be helping you.”

Kurt scoffed. “We’re not brothers, Finn. And I don’t need your help.” He turned away, and Finn didn’t know what to say for a minute. He felt a stab of hurt breaking into his frustration, and it started to bloom into anger before he could control it. 

“Whatever,” Finn said. There were a couple of minutes of awkward silence, as Kurt turned his back on Finn, and started pulling out his homework, and Finn sat on his bed, thinking and staring at the black screen of his television. He wondered if he should give up and just play some video games for a while, but the pressure in his chest wouldn’t let him. “I know…” Finn finally started to say, trying to keep his voice under control, “I know Burt’s not related to me, you know, biologically. I know he’s not _really_ my father. But. He’s still. He’s still my family, and he’s like, he’s mostly my dad. He’s the closest thing I’ve got, okay?”

“O…kay,” Kurt said, and he was looking at Finn again, his expression melting into guarded confusion. “I never said he wasn’t.”

“You said we weren’t brothers,” Finn told him.

“I didn’t mean…” Kurt said. “Look, Finn, I didn’t mean it like _that_. I know Burt’s your… close to being your father. I know he’s your family. I’m saying he’s not mine.”

“I don’t understand,” Finn said told him, and he honestly didn’t. “He’s your father. Your actual father.”

Kurt shook his head. “He might be related to me biologically, but that doesn’t mean he’s my family. My mother is my family. I never even knew him before last week. I don’t consider him my father, not really. That’s all I was trying to say.”

“Oh.” Finn guessed that made sense, since it was obvious that Kurt and Burt just hadn’t bonded at all. But that didn’t mean they weren’t family. Finn had never met his biological dad, but he knew that if, in some impossible way, they got to meet, they would still be family too, even if Burt was the one who had gotten him a car, and taught him how to give it an oil change, and had come to all of his football games. It meant something that Burt had done all of that. Burt was family. But his biological dad, he would have done all that for Finn, if he could. He was family too.

“Burt loves you, you know,” Finn told him, because even though it was a stupid, obvious, and girly thing to say, Kurt really didn’t seem to understand it.

Kurt proved his point by shaking his head. He looked really sad, too, which was a big change from the way he usually looked bored or pissed off.

“Please,” Finn told him. “Join New Directions. Let me try and help you. I really want to.”

“If – if you really don’t mind…”

“I don’t,” Finn said quickly. “I _want_ you to join, I promise.”

“Then okay,” Kurt said. “If you really don’t mind, if you don’t think anyone else would mind… okay. I would like to join. I do like singing.”

“Okay,” Finn said, and he smiled, feeling a lightness he hadn’t felt since Kurt had first stepped through that door.

* * *

It had been a hard week.

It had been a hard week on all fronts. 

He knew it wouldn’t be easy. He knew there were bigots out there, wastes of air that would hate him just for existing. He just didn’t know it would be… that bad. Maybe he was just naïve, sheltered, but he just… he hadn’t known.

The slushies had been relentless. He had gotten hit ten times that week, including the one that morning, and more than the pain of the icy cold hits, or even the humiliation of the minutes before he could change or get himself clean, was the fact that he was running out of clothes. 

Nearly all of the pieces he had brought from home had gotten hit, and most of them were dry clean only. But he didn’t have any money, or a car. He would talk to Carole this weekend, she would probably help him out – he would’ve asked her earlier in the week, before everything had the chance to set in for so long, but he had spent most of the time hiding in the basement, avoiding everything, and whenever he was forced to come out, _he_ was always there. And Kurt wasn’t going to ask in front of him, not after their fights over clothes. Burt would probably jump at the chance to give him an emphatic “told you so,” and might even refuse to help him out of spite. He didn’t want to risk being stuck in the plain fine-to-wash jeans and shirts that he had picked out with Carole. 

There were more problems beyond the slushies, though. The slurs had been continual too, but he didn’t care about them as much. They could call him what they wanted, they could paint it on his locker, they could write it in the sky for all he cared. They didn’t matter, none of them did. This school didn’t matter, Lima didn’t matter.

It was the physical stuff that was the worst by far. Kurt wasn’t a wimp, he could handle getting hurt, getting bruised, getting slammed around. It was like a supremely unfair sports game, but it was something he could deal with. What he couldn’t deal with was the way they would grab him, would _move_ him sometimes. How, if they decided that he needed to be dragged to the bathroom, or the janitor’s closet, or outside to the dumpster, he didn’t have a choice but to go. He could struggle, could tell his body to do this thing, to move that way, but no matter how great his force of will was, they were stronger, they were greater in number and their will would always win out; they would always be able to force him to go where they wanted.

It was almost unbearable, but he didn’t have the first clue what to do about it. There were never any witnesses – teachers never seemed to be around, or seemed to be looking the other way on purpose – and the few people he had talked to had implied that the administration wouldn’t be inclined to listen to a lone kid against a group – especially a popular group. And he couldn’t go to Burt. Burt had been the asshole jock when he was in high school. He’d probably call it roughhousing, or hazing, or Kurt’s own fault for daring to be different, and tell him to shrug it off.

Finn seemed to think that he could help, and that in particular joining the glee club would help. Kurt didn’t see why, as apparently being a part of the New Directions only made you less popular at that backwards school, but he was kind of looking forward to joining anyway. The only decent people he had met at that school so far had all been members, and, well, he was looking forward to being able to really sing again. He had a fantastic voice that should not be stifled, and even if he was in Lima, where nothing mattered, he could still work on it, still improve. And if he got to go to go to New York with them, well, that was just a bonus.

He still wasn’t sure what to make of Finn. He wasn’t counting on Finn making any of his school troubles go away, but he did kind of wish that maybe Finn and he would see each other more, that Finn really would stop acting like Kurt was poisonous. 

But even thinking about that put a lump in his throat tonight, because he was still telling himself that it didn’t matter, that Lima didn’t matter, and Finn didn’t matter, but that last thought almost made him feel guilty now. Because Finn had stood up and said that he did matter, and, as flawed as his logic was ( _“He doesn’t matter,” his mother had said, staring right into his eyes._ ), he had still meant it, fully and earnestly. And that meant… something.

And that made Lima just a little more real.

He called Adrian again that night, and they didn’t talk about Lima, or Burt, or Finn, or the New Directions. Instead, as always, they talked about how horrible the situation was, and how they hoped to be together soon, and then they talked about Seattle. They talked about Franklin, and all of Kurt’s friends, and how they all missed him. And as Adrian talked as though he expected Kurt to waltz back in next weekend, and they both avoided all of the elephants in the room, Kurt let himself shed a few tears, silently, for the faith that he was slowly losing.

* * *

The four of them went out to dinner on Sunday night, to one of those chain Italian restaurants Kurt’s mom had never taken him to, but Carole apparently loved. Kurt had the eggplant, and tried not to complain. Everyone seemed to be in a better mood, and less tense. Burt kept trying to strike up conversations, but luckily for Kurt, his questions were broad, and answerable by him or Finn (who was more than happy to step in and talk), so Kurt mentally stepped back and concentrated on not insulting the décor of the place. Carole seemed extra upbeat and chipper; her mood was probably helped along by that pitcher of sangria she was nursing all by herself. Kurt was tempted to ask for a taste, but he didn’t figure that would go over too well.

Carole kept making moon eyes at Burt too; it was actually pretty disturbing. Carole seemed pretty cool – she had helped Kurt with his dry cleaning needs on Saturday afternoon, sighing unhappily at the situation, but not pressing him for details, or making him feel guilty. Sometimes Kurt really wondered what in the world she was doing with someone like Burt, when she deserved a lot better. She looked nice tonight too, dressed in one of the Wal-Mart outfits Kurt had picked out for her.

By the end of the meal, Burt and Finn had settled comfortably into a discussion on the merits of being an ice road trucker versus being an ice fisher, or some nonsense like that, and Carole was red-faced, and still smiling at all of them happily. Kurt, who had admirably kept his goal by not making a snide comment when Carole had commented on the beauty of the mural behind them, honestly wondered what she was thinking. Wondered whether she was really that happy with her blended family. Wondered if she really thought that everything was going well.

Things were going better, at least. Kurt had to admit to that. He and Burt weren’t exactly talking, but they were being civil, they were calm enough to be willing to pretend to get along, and Burt hadn’t even made any comments about Kurt’s clothes before they left. It wasn’t anything big, it didn’t mean they were suddenly a functional family unit, but it really seemed like he was the only one who realized that. Some dark part inside of him wanted to upset that happy balance everyone else had, wanted to complain how this restaurant was inferior to every single one in Seattle, wanted to ask again when Burt would let him visit his mother, wanted to make a loud off-hand comment about how hot the waiter was (even if he _so_ wasn’t Kurt’s type).

But he kept his mouth shut, and let them have their happy family fantasy for tonight.

* * *

He missed his mom. He missed his mom every fucking day.

Especially the days he had to go to McKinley and face all of the hate and the pain and the helplessness. 

Especially the days that he stayed home, making nice with Carole, letting her help him, thinking of her as someone who could help, almost like a parent. 

Especially the nights, where he could call up his Seattle friends and talk to them, hear their voices, the way he couldn’t hear his mom’s voice.

There were just so many things he wanted to tell her, so many things he wanted her to comfort him about. But she was gone, locked up in some horrible jail somewhere in Ohio, facing a really long time in prison, and she was the one that really needed to be comforted. He always used to be able to cheer her up with a long hug, ending with an extra squeeze around her middle. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t do that for her now. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t run her hand across his cheek, and kiss his forehead, and tell him that everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t fair.

* * *

Kurt’s first day with the New Directions was… surprising. It wasn’t bad. It was even actually kind of good. But it was nothing like he was expecting.

It was disorganized, for one – from an offhand mention, Kurt could tell that they hadn’t selected the songs they were going to be singing for Nationals yet, but no one seemed too concerned. They didn’t work on any choreography, or practice parts for any song they were actually going to perform, but they did sing and dance. And it was pretty fun, even he had to admit that.

Finn had mentioned that he had to sing an audition piece, but had then assured him that he didn’t need to stress about it, since everyone who auditioned got in. Kurt had decided quickly that he wanted to do a Broadway tune. He thought about some of the great classic ones, but too many of them reminded him too much of his mom, of listening to them on lazy weekends, of singing together, high and loud and happy.

He went with a recent one instead – Everything Else from Next to Normal – but couldn’t get to the sheet music in time. When he got there, when everyone in that choir room –including the boys wearing their Letterman jackets – applauded him for just coming in and wanting to join, he immediately got pulled up to sing his song, and their pianist surprised him by immediately starting a flawless version as soon as he mentioned what he wanted to sing. 

And so he sang, glossing over the swears, hitting every note, putting all the passion he had into it, and it was glorious, this performing, nothing like singing in a chorus or in a shower. And he was good, he knew he was good, and they thought so too, he could tell by the smiles they had on their faces.

He did a quick little bow when he finished then took a seat quickly, next to Finn.

After he sat down, several other people got up to sing, and they were wonderful too, and then some of them start to join in, or to dance, just having a blast. Mike and Britney were amazing dancers, he found out quickly, and while everyone who sang sounded wonderful, he was particularly impressed by Rachel, the short brunette girl Mercedes had said used to date Finn, after he broke up with Quinn when they were dating the first time around (after she slept with his best friend, apparently, the one with the Mohawk, and seriously, it is a testament to the power of song that these people can all be in the same room together, much less be dancing and smiling and friendly).

Rachel sought him out after the club meeting finished, introduced herself officially and announced that she understood everything he was going through because she had two gay dads. She invited herself over to his house that afternoon. From the way Finn’s girlfriend was glaring at her, he guessed that the power of song hadn’t actually fixed every interpersonal problem this group had. But she was insistent, and Finn was going over Quinn’s again today anyway, so he agreed.

He was still in a good mood when he got back to the house. He and Rachel had a pretty good conversation about Next to Normal, and what a shame it was that it didn’t have a longer Broadway run. But he felt his chest tighten up again when he saw Burt and Carole, and the smile fell off his face. They looked so pleased, like they had at the restaurant.

Kurt had enjoyed the glee club today, he would let himself enjoy the glee club, but that didn’t mean things were anywhere close to okay. It didn’t mean that he was happy here now. He dropped his smile, and let his face become stony. He immediately led Rachel downstairs, where they listened to some more Broadway songs. Rachel varied between singing along, and trying to start conversations about how Finn must be an awesome stepbrother, and by the way did he ever mention her? After about an hour and a half, Kurt finally pleaded headache and hinted that she maybe should leave, and so she did, promising that she would come back later, and maybe, if he was lucky, she might even choose a song for them to sing together.

* * *

Kurt’s second week at McKinley High went much better than his first. He still got slushied and he still got shoved and taunted and manhandled, but it was less. And he started seeing Finn, and some of the other guys from the New Directions in the halls more, plus he was hanging out with Mercedes and Tina and Mike and Britney and Artie… it was just better, all around. The next few glee club meetings were just as fun as the first one too, though he hadn’t sung again. He was trying to think of the perfect song- one that might convince them to maybe feature him at Nationals. That would be amazing.

He and Finn were getting along better back at the house too. They didn’t talk that much, but they didn’t avoid each other, and they were both a lot more comfortable. It made Kurt feel less guilty about hanging out down in the basement to avoid Burt.

But even though they were getting along better, that didn’t mean that Finn’s face didn’t light up that next weekend, when Burt and Carole had told them that they were going to go look at possible houses to move in to. Kurt didn’t blame him- he didn’t care as much what the new house would be like, because it wouldn’t actually be his home anyway – but he did agree that it would be nice for everyone to have their own space, their own door they could shut and lock. So he went along with them, and made vaguely nice comments about all of the houses, even the really hideous ones, hoping that they would decide on something soon. It wasn’t a bad day, and as a bonus, he had an excuse to beg off spending time with Rachel.

That Sunday, though, was not as good, or peaceful, as the one before. Burt decided to bring Kurt and Finn to his shop to show Kurt around and teach them both some stuff. Apparently it was pretty common for Finn to visit the garage, and Burt had already taught him how to do a lot of things, but Kurt wasn’t really into it. His mom had been a big fan of AAA, and he was a big fan of not getting dirty at all. But Burt had informed him that it wasn’t negotiable, so he changed into some of the clothes he and Carole had bought two weeks before, and headed up.

Burt stared at him critically when he arrived at the first floor. Kurt ran his fingers over his shirt defensively. It was a stupid one, low quality fabric, boring light blue, no fancy stitching; he had no idea why Burt would have a problem with it.

“Can’t you do something about your hair?” he finally asked.

Kurt frowned, and tried to surreptitiously check his reflection against the microwave. “What’s wrong with my hair?” he asked. “I spent a lot of time on it, it should be perfect.”

Burt frowned. “It’s too fancy, has too much crap in it. We’re going to the garage, not… not anywhere you need to be all made up for. Can’t you just mess it up a little, or something?”

“Oh my god, Burt,” Kurt seethed. “It’s not like I’m wearing my tiara. I’m wearing the stupid, cheap, boring clothes you want me to.”

“I told you not to call me Burt,” Burt said. “I’m your father. And… you have a tiara?”

“I had five. I left them in Seattle.”

Burt rolled his eyes and shook his head, like he thought Kurt was ridiculous or something. Kurt bristled. “Listen,” Burt said, sounding annoyed, “This is my garage, Kurt, these are my employees. You can’t…”

“If,” Kurt said icily, “you don’t want your employees to know you have a gay son, maybe you shouldn’t invite your gay son to your place of work. I happen to know that your gay son would be more than happy to not have to go.” Kurt turned on his heel, and marched downstairs.

He was half-expecting Burt to come down after him, but he never did.

* * *

Monday started off okay, like the previous week. Kurt didn’t get slushied a single time. He got pushed around a few times, and someone had stuffed a vulgar, somewhat threatening note into the vents of his locker, but it was stuff he could ignore.

It wasn’t until after school, during glee, that everything hit the fan.

Finn came in late, pressing paper towels into his blue-stained shirt. Kurt looked on sympathetically as Rachel and Quinn jumped up to help, Rachel sitting down after Quinn shot her a glare. Finn sighed as he let her seat him down. He looked defeated. 

“Who did this?” Quinn asked, sounding scary.

“Azimio and Karafsky,” he said. “I told them. About me and Kurt, you know, that we’re brothers.” Quinn looked like she didn’t know whether to be sad, or annoyed. “They were ragging on him, during sixth period, so, so I told them, and I told them to stop. They ambushed me just now.”

“I’m sorry, Finn,” Kurt said softly, and closed his eyes, trying not to see the upset couple next to him, trying to push down the guilt.

* * *

Finn thought maybe that he would be mad at Kurt, but he wasn’t, really. He knew it wasn’t Kurt’s fault that most of the school was ganging up on him, even though Kurt did insist on wearing those weird clothes, and didn’t seem interested in blending in, or trying not to be gay. Finn got that, he did; he wasn’t interested in giving up glee, even though it had made him unpopular. He figured that he could handle it if Kurt could. After all, no one was trying to throw him in dumpsters.

The laughing hurt, though. And the slushies were sticky. And on Tuesday, Karofsky and Azimio cornered him in the locker room, and might have even started pounded him if Puck hadn’t come in. So maybe things weren’t so much under control. But there really wasn’t much to do but stick together, and hope it blew over soon.

When Finn got home that day, Burt invited him to go to Vinnie’s Sports Grill, to hang out and watch the game. He invited Kurt too, but kind of like an afterthought, like he knew Kurt wouldn’t really be interested. Kurt, as expected, said he didn’t want to go, and looked relieved as he headed down the stairs without being challenged. So Finn went with Burt, and really had a good time, and didn’t feel guilty about leaving Kurt behind, because this really was the type of thing they liked to do, and Kurt didn’t. Kurt seemed to like that fancy Italian place a lot more, although Finn liked that place too. He liked most restaurants. But Vinnie’s was extra awesome, especially tonight, with the basketball game on the big scream, and the big baskets of fries and chicken wings they shared (Burt wasn’t supposed to eat delicious stuff like that, but he’d begged Finn not to tell anyone, and Finn figured that fried food once in a while couldn’t really hurt). 

The next day, nothing horrible happened to him at school, not even a slushie. Kurt got slushied once, when he was walking to Math with Rachel, but at least it was only that once. He didn’t even seem as bothered about it, as far as Finn could tell. And they had a good time at glee again, so they were both in good moods when they got home that day.

His mom and Burt were not in good moods though, that was obvious as soon as they walked through the door. His mom was sitting at the kitchen table, with her face creased in a frown, and her hand laid over Burt’s arm. Burt... looked cranky. He was sitting at the table too, with a few Budweiser bottles in front of him – which was unusual, especially for a Wednesday afternoon, for no friends over, and no game on.

“Is everything okay?” Finn asked. 

"Have a seat," Burt told them. Finn sat, and looked at Kurt. Kurt looked like he really, really didn't want to sit down. His face was hard and angry again, the way it always seemed to be around Burt, but it usually didn't get this hard and angry until they'd been talking to each other for at least a couple minutes.

"Have a seat, guys," his mom echoed Burt. She sounded tired, and she kept her hand on Burt, rubbing it back and forth a little. 

Finn and Kurt sat down quietly. "Are we in any trouble?" Finn asked.

"Of course not," his mom answered. "We were just wondering how your day was."

"Oh," Finn said. "It was fine."

"Yeah," Kurt said. "As fine as it ever is." 

Burt scowled at that response. "Something you're not telling us? People been bothering you? I know they've been messing with your clothes."

Finn looked at Kurt, but he just shook his head slightly. "We're fine," he repeated.

Burt shook his head. "Well, I had an interesting day at work-"

"We don't need to..." his mom said, cutting him off. Burt shook his head again, and pulled his arm away from her.

"I had an interesting day," he repeated. "Apparently, someone felt the pressing need to give me a call – at work – and let me know that my son's a fag."

Finn winced, and looked over at Kurt, who didn't change his expression. "I'm sorry," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. He had thought Kurt might apologize too, like he had after Finn had gotten slushied, but Kurt didn't look sorry at all.

"I'm just wondering if either of you know if there's something that could've brought this on," Burt continued. 

"Maybe the fact that this town is filled with ignorant homophobes?" Kurt put in, glaring at Burt like they were having an argument.

"Maybe the way you're dressing and acting is setting people off," Burt shot back, and, whoa, maybe they were in an argument. Burt sounded _mad_.

"Don't forget about the way I style my hair."

"Guys, please..."

"No, Carole, he needs to hear this. Look at him, he's not taking this seriously at all."

"I didn't make that phone call, and I certainly didn't tell anyone to make a phone call like that," Kurt said. "So I don't know why you're talking like I'm not here, or why exactly you're acting like I need to be punished for something."

"I'm not talking about punishment," Burt said loudly, almost like he was yelling. "I'm talking about – changing your behavior. Just... toning it down."

"I'm not doing anything wrong," Kurt bit back, raising his voice to match Burt's.

Burt gestured at Kurt, and his outfit. "You're ridiculous," he said. "Jesus. Jesus Christ, I don't understand you at all. Your mother must have let you get away with murder." 

By the look on his face, Finn honestly thought Kurt might make a break for it, and head down to the basement. But instead, he just shook his head, and looked down at the table. "Don't you talk about my mother," he said, voice lower in volume, but just as full of anger.

"Burt, maybe we shouldn't –" Finn's mom tried to interject quietly, putting her hand on his shoulder this time. He shook it off.

"Why not?" Burt said. "Maybe we should. This is all her fault, after all. If she hadn't taken you away, if you'd have grown up here, with me, like you should have, and then you wouldn't have turned out..." He gestured at Kurt again. "That way."

There was silence for a few seconds. "What, do you mean, like, gay?" Finn finally asked.

"You boys should go downstairs now," his mom said, a sharper tone in her voice now. Burt picked up one of the bottles in front of him, and took a long sip from it. Finn got up, and headed down the stairs, hearing Kurt move after him.

They were quiet for a while. Kurt put his face in the pillow and didn’t say anything, but didn’t seem to be crying, either. Finn wanted to say something to comfort him, but it was complicated, because it was _Burt_. He ended up flipping through a comic book for a little over an hour, until his mom called them up for supper.

“I’m not going up there,” Kurt said, face still mashed in his pillow. 

“Okay,” Finn agreed. “I’ll bring you something down?”

In the end, it was just he and his mom who ate; Burt had apparently already eaten, and was hiding out in the master bedroom, and Kurt still wouldn’t come up, even after he was told that. Finn brought some food down, like he had promised, but Kurt didn’t make a move to eat it at all that night, and when Finn woke up the next morning, it still looked untouched.

* * *

The next day started off normal, or what was becoming Finn’s new normal, anyway. Staying on hyper-alert, sticking extra close with the rest of New Directions, watching the rest of the student body carefully, seeing whether they were turning on him more, or gradually forgetting about it. It seemed like they were forgetting about it, but it couldn’t happen fast enough.

It was after his last class of the day, before glee, that things started to get fall apart. He was on his way to the choir room, when Karofsky rushed out of the boy’s locker room, and barreled at him. Finn cringed, not knowing what to expect, but Karofsky just ran passed him. Finn caught a quick look at his face, and it looked weird, like he was stressed out, or something. It looked like he didn’t even see Finn there, which was a relief, but didn’t really relieve the stress seeing him appear like that had caused. 

Without really thinking about why he was doing it, Finn headed towards the locker room, and, bracing himself, pushed in.

Kurt was in there. Of course Kurt was in there. It looked like he was alone. “Are you okay?” Finn asked him.

He didn’t look okay. He wasn’t slushied, or covered in garbage, and his clothes were untouched, and Finn didn’t see any blood, or bruises. And his hair wasn’t wet, which meant he hadn’t gotten any kind of swirly. But he looked upset. Really, really upset, like Finn had rarely seen. “What happened?” he asked, when Kurt didn’t say anything. “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Kurt finally said. He closed his eyes, and shook himself a little, but when he opened his eyes again, instead of the hard indifferent look Finn was used to seeing when Kurt was dealing with bullies or Burt, he mainly looked disgusted. “Let’s just go to glee.”

Kurt was really quiet in glee that day, and on the way home. Finn tried to get him to tell what happened, but it seemed to put him into an even worse mood, so he dropped it. 

When the two of them got home, Finn expected Kurt to head down to their room first thing, like he usually did, especially since there were no parents there to ambush them at the kitchen table. Finn could hear the TV in the living room, which was where Burt probably was, so it was surprising when Kurt immediately headed in there.

Finn followed, knowing that this couldn’t be good. His mom and Burt were sitting there in front of the TV, looking up with slight surprise as Kurt stepped in front of them.

“I want to see my mother,” he said.

There was a moment of stunned silence, but it didn’t last very long. “Absolutely not,” Burt replied.

“I need to see her. Please, she’s my mother, I just – I’ve got to see her,” Kurt said, and Finn could see cracks of how upset he had been before show up in his face again. “You need to just listen to me,” Kurt continued forcefully as Burt continued to shake his head. “I know you don’t want me to see her, but I’m telling you, I _need_ to. I _need_ to talk to her. I know you’re going to say no, but I wouldn’t bother asking if it wasn’t important.”

“What’s so important you need to talk to her about?” Burt finally asked him, a suspicious look on his face. Kurt shook his head. “No,” he continued. “It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. Just get that idea out of your head.”

“Kurt... if you need to talk?” his mom started cautiously, but Kurt just shook his head again, and fixed a glare on Burt.

“Thank you for absolutely nothing,” he said, and his voice was hard and mean, but also shaking a little bit, and all Finn could see was that upset look on his face in the locker room. Kurt marched off, slamming the door behind him when he reached the basement steps. Burt sighed and rubbed his eyes, and Finn sat down on one of the couches.

“I think something happened at school today,” Finn offered. “I don’t really know what, I couldn’t get him to tell me, but he was really upset.”

“I know it must be so hard,” his mom sighed. Burt just looked miserable.

“I know…” Finn said, “I know that when I’m really upset, sometimes all I want is, is my mom. Are you sure you can’t let Kurt just visit her?”

“I’m sure,” Burt said firmly. “You don’t understand, Finn. You guys just don’t understand.”

* * *

The day after that asshole Karofsky threw him up against a set of lockers, kissed him, and panicked, he sought Kurt out again, though this time he dragged his friend Azimio along.

Finn and the other kids from the glee club had been trying to keep an eye on him between classes, and were actually doing a pretty good job, but they weren’t there a hundred percent of the time, and it was like Karofsky was stalking him in order to catch him alone.

He grabbed Kurt from behind, again, and dragged him over to the boy’s bathroom. Kurt did his level best to struggle, to get away, and the other kids in the hall did their best to ignore him. Kurt was actually relieved when he spied Azimio waiting inside by the toilet stalls – Karofsky was a complete wild card at this point. At least with someone else around, they’d probably stick to more of the usual straight-up bullying.

They were apparently giving him a swirly again today, he noted bleakly, as Azimio swung the stall door open, and Karofsky pushed him to the edge, and pressed his face down.

And even this was worse than normal, from what he had come to expect at McKinley. The toilet water was clear, thank god, thank god, but Karofsky was holding him down… differently. He didn’t recall exactly how he was held down before, but it certainly wasn’t this, this full-body press, the other boy wrapped around his legs, and over his back, fingers gripping his hair as he pressed him into the water. Azimio laughed from behind him, and the toilet flushed and flushed as he tried to hold his breath for an increasingly long amount of time – Karofsky wasn’t letting him up an inch today. 

Kurt tried his best to keep himself perfectly still, to stop himself from moving against Karofsky in the efforts of a futile struggle. It would all be a moot point soon, anyway, since he wasn’t going to be able to keep himself conscious for that much longer.

It ended in a flash, Karofsky hauling him up, and letting him drop onto the dirty floor, where he panted and gasped. He was lost in his own head for a few moments, trying to catch his breath, and trying to come to terms with the fact that yes, that really just happened. Despite everything he’s already going through, his life really could, _did_ , just get that much scarier. 

And then he realized that Azimio was leaving.

His brain rewound the last few seconds, and helpfully caught him up: Azimio said he had to go to class, Karofsky said he would just be a couple more minutes behind, Azimio was leaving, Azimio was out the door, and Karofsky was still there, and Karofsky was _grinning_ at him now.

He was still winded, and he felt weak, but he pulled himself up against the stall door, not wanting to face Karofsky from the floor.

“Have you told anyone?” Karofsky asked him, before he could think of anything to say first.

“No,” Kurt said, after a couple more deep breaths. “I don’t actually believe in outing other people. But if you don’t start to leave me alone, I’m going to have to tell someone. I’ll tell everyone, if you force me to. You can’t keep harassing me like this.”

“I’ll do whatever I feel like,” Karofsky said, his face losing its smile, and turning dark. “And you won’t open your fucking mouth. Because if you whisper a word to anyone – _anyone_ , I will kill you, I swear it.”

Kurt believed him. He believed him with every quick beat of his adrenaline-fueled heart, with every drop of water making its way down his skin.

Karofsky smiled again, then, like he didn’t have a care in the world, the turned and walked out, leaving Kurt alone.

Kurt was tempted to head straight to the library after, or to just track Finn down, even if he was in a completely different class than he was supposed to be, but then he remembered that Sam was in his class this period, and Sam would probably walk him to wherever he needed to go afterwards. He arrived late, hair and shirt still soaked, and the teacher didn’t give him a second look.

He ended up making it through the rest of his classes that day. It was easier just to sit quietly and calm himself down. No one noticed anything was different, or at least, no one said anything to him. It made sense. It wasn’t like he was talkative or happy to begin with, not here, not since he’d been dragged to McKinley.

He tried to figure out what to do. He really, really, didn’t want to find out what would happen if he told someone, and Karofsky found out. Unless he could find someone he could trust to keep him safe, and act right away… Karofsky was going to do something. Maybe not kill him, but… something. And he couldn’t trust anyone. Certainly not any of the faculty at this school. He didn’t think he could trust Burt either. Burt might even find a way to blame all of this on him.

But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he could handle another incident like this morning’s. 

Finn dropped him off after school that day, and went over to Quinn’s. He thanked Finn, before he left the car, for looking out for him. Finn looked confused for a minute, but then his face cleared, and he smiled, and said that it wasn’t a problem. Kurt wished he could tell him, just to be able to tell someone, but he knew Finn wouldn’t be able to control himself, and it would just end up putting him in Karofsky’s path. He just told Finn to have a good time, and went inside.

There was one thing he had come to a decision on that day, though, and after he made his way to the bottom of the stairs, he pulled out his phone, and started dialing a familiar number.

He still had minutes left to use, mainly because he had finished all of the original number of minutes he had been given, and Carole had taken pity on him, and gotten him a bunch more. He wasn’t sure if Burt knew he had been given new ones or not, but he didn’t think so. 

“Hello?” Adrian said from the other end of the line, from Seattle, from a lifetime ago. “Kurt? Kurt, are you there? Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said through the tears that were suddenly falling down his face, now that he was in his room and safe, now that he was really going through with this. “I’m so sorry.”

“What is it? Kurt, talk to me.”

He knew it was the right thing to do. It didn’t make things any easier. “We need to break up.”

“Kurt-”

“Please. You know we have to. It’s not fair to either of us. I’m stuck here, he won’t even let me have any internet – what kind of relationship can we even have? You should… find someone else. Someone you can actually be with.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before Adrian’s guarded voice spoke again. “I want to be with you. I can wait for you.”

“You don’t want to,” Kurt whispered. “You don’t want to do that. It’s too long, and it’s, it’s not worth it. You need to find someone else. Someone else can make you happy.”

“Kurt… Kurt, I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Kurt said. “I’m sorry too. It’s for the best, okay?”

“Kurt –”

“Goodbye, Adrian,” Kurt said, and he hung up the phone with a firm press of his thumb. It was done, and it really for the best. Adrian was still in Seattle, a place Kurt had never thought of as perfect before, but which was practically a utopia now, in retrospect. He was in Seattle, where he could find other boys to be with. Boys who were more than a voice on the phone. Boys who hadn’t been dumped in toilets, or…

Boys without all the baggage Kurt had. He had already spent the majority of his precious cell phone minutes complaining to Adrian. And what was he supposed to do now; complain even more about his crappy, crappy life? Or lie about it? Adrian was well rid of him. He didn’t have anything to offer besides pain anymore.

It still hurt. He was still crying, in spite of himself. He considered calling Mercedes or Tina, or even Rachel, just for sympathy or distraction, but the thought of explaining things to them, even in an edited version, seemed too hard. And he couldn’t call any of his Seattle friends. They would… know. How hard it was, what it meant. And the thought of facing that sympathy, those questions, that seemed even harder, hard enough that he decided it was better just to shut his phone off for now.

He had a couple of subject’s worth of homework to do, but he was too tired. Just lying in bed, and not doing anything seemed like his best option at this point, and maybe if he could sleep for a while, that would even be better.

He did manage to sleep, because the next thing he knew, he was getting called up for dinner. He turned over without answering. Carole poked her head down a few minutes later, but he waved her off with an easy lie about a headache, and without Finn there to cajole him out of bed and up the stairs, he got away with skipping the meal. He turned over, and fell asleep again.

The next day, it took all the effort in the world to get out of bed. He did it, though, he got up, chose a fabulous outfit that no one would appreciate, drank a little bit of orange juice that felt sour in his stomach, and got in the car after Finn. He double-checked that Finn would walk him to his first class, and didn’t even let himself feel clingy, or needy. 

He went through the day not really concentrating on anything. During his classes, he doodled designs for a new jacket, then new pants and boots, and none of the teachers scolded him, or yelled at him, or called on him. He put the sketch pad down for glee, but still didn’t pay attention, or join in any of the songs. Finn had to apologize for him, tell everyone he wasn’t feeling well, and everyone kept escorting him to classes, so at least they couldn’t have been too mad at him.

Lunch was extra hard – Karofsky was in there, and Kurt could’ve sworn he leered at him at one point. Brittany kept trying to get him to eat, and she seemed so sad whenever he refused, that he finally choked down half of a sandwich. It didn’t help.

Rachel walked him to his locker at the end of the day, and started nattering on about an art show in a local park they should go see on Sunday, Finn too, of course. He was giving her a noncommittal answer when all of the sudden, he felt himself slam into the lockers to his right.

“Hey!” cried Rachel, whirling around and glaring at Karofsky, who was standing there with a horrible smile on his face. “You can’t do that!”

“Whatever,” Karofsky replied. “The homo probably enjoyed it anyway – he probably likes it rough.” At that, he spun around, and headed back down the hall.

Rachel sputtered angrily as Kurt pulled himself up. “What a jerk!” she exclaimed, as Kurt just took off towards his locker again. “I’m really sorry,” she continued, rushing to catch up with him. “I guess I wasn’t any help.” 

“It’s fine,” Kurt replied shortly. “I wouldn’t have expected you to do anything anyway.”

Finn was there, at his locker, when he arrived. Rachel told him what happened, apologized again, and then in the same breath invited him to the art show.

“I have plans with Quinn Sunday afternoon,” he told her. “Kurt? Are you okay?”

Kurt shook his head. There wasn’t anything else he could do. “No.” Finn looked at him helplessly. “Let’s just go home, okay?” he finally suggested. He’d at least be safe in the basement.

Unfortunately for him, when they got home, they found out that Burt and Carole were set on having another family dinner out. Kurt really, really wanted to beg off, but looking at their faces, he knew that fighting that battle would be harder than just going along with them.

He almost rethought that conclusion when Burt told him to go change his clothes into something more appropriate, but Burt backed off that when Carole said that she thought he looked very nice, and that she liked the fact that his vest brought out the green in his eyes. She smiled at him as she said that, but he couldn’t return the smile. He appreciated her speaking up for him, but he was just so tired of this being an issue in the first place.

He ate little, and said less that night, but he was right – it was easier just to go along with this, let them pretend to have their happy family. All he had to do was say ‘fine’ whenever someone asked how something was, and he was let off the hook.

However, he found himself out of luck the next morning, when he and Finn were asked their plans for the weekend. Finn remembered that Rachel had invited them to the park, but quickly begged off himself, because of his plans with Quinn (his mother didn’t look very happy with that, but from what Kurt knew about their history, he didn’t blame her). Unfortunately, Burt and Carole got it in their heads that he was spending too much time hiding away in the basement, and they practically insisted that he go. He didn’t want to go – he wanted to stay in his basement, where it was safe, where no one bothered him but Finn, and Finn was okay – but they weren’t letting up, and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It was an art show at a park; it wasn’t like there was a big chance Karofsky or any of the other jocks would be showing up. Rachel wasn’t his favorite person in the world, and he wasn’t even sure she’d be all that interested in going with him knowing that Finn wouldn’t be coming along, but it might be a good distraction, and it would get him away from Burt for a couple of hours. So when Carole went to the effort of calling Rachel’s dads to work out the details, he just let it happen.

Rachel came over at about 11 o’clock on Sunday to pick him up in her dads’ Nissan. Kurt met her outside, and she mentioned maybe going inside and saying hi to everyone first, but she gave up that idea when Kurt pointed out that Finn’s car was already gone.

The art show was underwhelming, as was the park. Rachel didn’t seem to care; she split her time between talking about her plans to move to New York in the future and trying to grill Kurt about Finn. 

Kurt spent the whole time paranoid and looking over his shoulder – he thought he spied someone in a McKinley letterman jacket early on, but he wasn’t sure. He kept his eyes open, though, and didn’t really let himself relax the whole time. When they were done looking at everything, Rachel bought them both pretzels, and they sat down on the edge of a fountain. She seemed to finally really look at him as they ate slowly. 

“I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time,” she told him, and she seemed to mean it. “It does get better, you know, my dads are proof. Oh! Have you seen that website, ‘It Gets Better?’ That’s a good website, you should look it up when you go home.”

“Burt doesn’t let me have access to the internet at home,” Kurt said stiffly. He had gone on a few times at school, but so many things were blocked there, including facebook, it was practically not even worth it. “But yes, I’m aware of the ‘It Gets Better’ project. I’m also aware that it gets better than Lima, Ohio. I used to live it. Seattle… it was never like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel repeated, subdued.

They finished eating quietly, and then headed back to her car, which was parked in a secluded area, with no one around. 

No one but the assholes in McKinley jackets that seemed to be coming out of nowhere.

Three of them started to block the path to the car, which was right in front of them, but could just as well have been 500 miles away, for all the likelihood of them getting there before the jocks did whatever they intended to do. Kurt looked behind them, but there were more coming up behind them as well – they were pretty much circled.

And of course, Karofsky was right there in front. He smiled, and looked downright excited as he held up what looked like a water balloon. Everyone else around them brought them out and held them up too.

“Hey!” Rachel cried from his side. “Leave us alone!”

“This isn’t about you, Berry,” Karofsky said, licking his lips. “We’re going to put Hummel here in his place.”

“You can’t do this!” she cried. “You’re gonna get in so much trouble!”

“Yeah, right,” one of the boys said. “We’re all hanging out in my basement right now. Your word’s gonna be better than my mom’s?”

“Besides, Kurt’s not going to tell,” Karofsky said. “Right?”

“Just get out of the way, Rachel,” Kurt told her. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. She was crying a little bit.

“It’s okay,” he said. He took a few steps off to the side, moving away from Rachel, and towards one of the jocks that wasn’t Karofsky. The jock flung the balloon hard, right in his face.

Kurt didn’t know exactly what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

As soon as his mind recognized the warm liquid sting on his face as urine, he made an inarticulate scream of disgust, and crumpled in on himself, gagging. Other balloons soon followed after, and he shut his mouth tight, and brought his hands up to cover his face. They seemed to keep coming, soaking him, his clothes, his hair. He heard raucous laughter and the sound of pounding feet running away, but they were still coming, they weren’t finished yet. The back of his neck. The small of his back. On his forehead, above where his hands were shielding.

Finally, the attacks stopped, though he tensed and held his protective position as he heard one last person come over to him. _Please not Karofsky_ , he thought. _Please not_.

“Kurt?” Rachel asked, breaking into his thoughts. “They’re gone now. Are you okay?”

He tried not to laugh at the question. “Do you have a towel or something?” he finally asked her slowly.

She came back with some paper towels, and a thermal blanket. He thanked her quietly, and started trying to wipe himself off as best he could, but he gave up quickly. “Can you please just drive me back to the house?” he asked her, vaguely registering how pathetic he sounded. “I’ll sit on the blanket, I’ll try not to cause a mess, I just, I need to take a shower as soon as I can.” He wasn’t going to be able to scrape this off. He was doubtful he’d even be able to wash it off, but he still needed it, needed to stop smelling this, and feeling this. He needed to be safe, in his small little basement bathroom, not out here, with woods and open land all around.

She walked him over to the car, and didn’t say anything about him dripping in it. When he looked over at her, she was sniffling a little bit. They drove in relative silence until they reached the house. Rachel put the car in park, and started to open the door.

“Don’t,” Kurt said. “Just drop me off.”

She looked at him earnestly through her teary eyes. “We’ve got to tell them what happened,” she said. “I’m a witness, I can make a statement or something.”

“I’m not going to tell on them,” Kurt said. “It would just get worse.”

“How could it get worse?” Rachel gasped.

“It can always get worse,” Kurt told her, feeling a little envious of her naiveté. But this wasn’t her battle to fight. “Just go home, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow at school. I’ll bring you your blanket back then.”

Kurt grabbed the blanket off the seat, and slammed the door after him. Rachel’s car was still idling there, unmoving, as he opened the door to Burt’s house, and jumped right into the fire.

They were both there, Burt and Carole, both sporting rapidly fading smiles as they took in his appearance.

“What the hell happened?” Burt asked, anger starting to flare in his tone. “Is that – did you –”

“I need to take a shower,” Kurt said, shutting the door after him, and heading towards the basement.

“Kurt!” Carole said, sounding horrified. “Wait, what happened?”

“It’s nothing,” Kurt said. Burt moved to block him from the door to his room. “I need to take a shower,” Kurt told him, trying to sound normal, trying not to sound like he was pleading.

“Oh my god,” Burt said. “They threw pee on you, didn’t they.” He sounded disgusted. “Who, Kurt? Who did this?”

“I don’t know.” Kurt said. “I didn’t see them. Look, I’ve got to take a shower. It’s no big deal, just let me take a shower.”

“Kurt, honey, you’ve got to tell us,” Carole said.

“I _don’t know_ ,” Kurt repeated, louder. “I don’t _know_ who it was. Please, just let me go downstairs!”

Burt shook his head, and he looked _mad_. “Look at this,” he said in a tight, angry voice. “Look at you.”

He stalked away from the basement door, and Kurt took his chance to duck down. He made it to the bathroom, and took off some of his layers, dumping them in the corner of the tiled floor, before he heard pounding on the basement steps. As much as he wanted to finish stripping and step in that shower, he paused; something was going on out there. He heard Carole through the door, pleading with Burt about something, and she sounded upset, more upset than he’d ever heard her before.

So Kurt, still wearing a foul undershirt and jeans, opened the bathroom door to see Burt (Burt, who rarely ever ventured to the basement, who generally left him alone down here) grabbing some of his clothes off their hangers in the closet, and stuffing them into a big black garbage bag.

“What are you doing?” Kurt asked. _“What are you doing?”_

“What I should have done the first night you got here,” Burt replied, not looking at Kurt, not straying from his task. “I’m getting rid of all these ridiculous things you call clothes.”

“You can’t do that,” Kurt told him, trying to put steel in his voice. It didn’t work; his voice was breaking. “Those are mine.”

He saw Burt grab the shirt he had picked out during a visit shopping trip to Le Frock with Mei-Ling. Saw it shoved in the bag like it was a used tissue. Then Burt grabbed the jacket his mom had gotten him for Christmas the year before. The wool vest Ani had knitted for him. He’d only even ever worn that once, back in Seattle. 

“Stop it,” he said. “Stop it.” He couldn’t help himself. He was about to cry.

“No,” Burt told him, tying off the bag he was working on, and opening a new one. “I’m bringing these to the dump, where they belong.”

“No,” Kurt said, and the tears really were falling down now. “No!”

“Yes,” Burt yelled back. “You go around dressed like that, and people – they throw food at you, they throw pee at you. They knock you around. It’s like an open invitation. I’m not going to let you do that to yourself!”

Kurt felt like he was glued to the ground. He felt disgusting, and tainted, and like he would taint his whole room if moved across it. Like he would ruin his own clothes if he tried to grab them in an attempt to save them from Burt. He made eye contact with Carole, who was standing on the stairs, looking stricken. She wanted to help, Kurt could tell she wanted to help.

But she didn’t. She just let Burt put more and more of his things into the trash bag. The pink and black scarf Adrian had bought him as a just-because gift. The heeled boots he had saved up for. The skinny jeans he had altered himself.

Burt was talking again. “I know you love these stupid things, but I don’t care. I’m you’re father, and I have to protect you. This is for your own good, Kurt. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

Kurt stood there, sobbing, not even caring that he was crying in front of Burt. Burt wasn’t looking at him anyway. Finally, as Burt moved on to his third bag, Kurt spoke again. And it felt like he was breaking. “Please dad,” he cried. “Please, please don’t do this. Dad, please!”

His father finally paused in what he was doing, but he still didn’t look at Kurt. “I’m doing this for your own good, son,” he said, and it sounded like the anger had drained from him, just leaving weariness behind. “It’s my job to protect you. This is going to protect you.” He started picking up the clothes again, though more slowly this time. He still didn’t look at Kurt.

Kurt went back into the bathroom, and closed the door after him. He stripped off the rest of his clothes, set the shower to piping hot, crawled in, and cried until he had nothing left. He scrubbed himself down from head to toe three times after that, and was finally driven from the safety of the shower when he couldn’t stand the cold anymore. 

He dressed himself numbly in sweats and a t-shirt, and buried himself in his bed. It hurt so much, but he let himself mourn his clothes, his memories, thinking carefully on every single piece he had managed to salvage with Mrs. Hu, the ones chosen quickly and carefully, the ones that had, for the most part, managed to survive McKinley and its slushie machine. 

Now the only thing he had left from Seattle was a urine-soaked outfit crumpled up in the corner of his bathroom.

When they called him up for dinner, he initially tried to refuse, but his father let him know that the rules of the game had changed, by marching right down the stairs, pulling the sheet off of him, and insisting that he come up and have dinner with his family. Kurt followed him quietly up the stairs, but he stopped at the top. “Is it done?” he asked.

His father nodded. “It’s done.”

Finn and Carole were already sitting at the kitchen table. Finn was looking at him a little wide-eyed, and Kurt wondered what they had told him.

His father loaded his plate with food for him – a baked stuffed chicken breast, steamed broccoli, and a multi-grain roll – and tried to talk to him, but Kurt ignored everything, and didn’t even pretend to eat. 

The longer he sat there, the more ridiculous the parody of a family meal seemed. Why had he come upstairs when his father had asked him to? It wasn’t like his father could have forced him, could have lifted him out of bed, and carried him upstairs. And it wasn’t like he could have threatened him with anything – Kurt had nothing to lose, not anymore. The only thing he had left was his very life, and while Karofsky might be interested in taking that from him, he was pretty sure his father wasn’t.

Kurt picked up his full plate off of the table, and quickly flipped it around, dumping everything onto the tablecloth, and pushing the plate on top of it. He looked up at the surprised eyes of everyone else at the table.

“I hate you,” he informed his father, who looked like he was about to start lecturing. His father closed his mouth, momentarily stunned. “I hate you,” he repeated, “and when I turn eighteen, I’m leaving, and I’m never coming back. And you’re never going to see me again.”

Kurt went downstairs, slamming the door after him. This time, no one came after him.

* * *

There was a time when Carole figured that Burt must be the greatest father in existence. She fell in love with him first, him as a man, him for what he did for her, to her. She fell in love with his strength, his caring, his humor, and his love, reflecting right back at her. She didn’t introduce him to Finn until months into the relationship, when he already had her whole heart. She didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t gotten along with her son, but, stupidly, she hadn’t really worried about it, had assumed it would all work out. And it really did, beyond her wildest dreams. Finn took to him almost immediately; he had a weekend of angst about replacing his father, but then he was enjoying spending time with him, then looking up to him, then idolizing him. Burt, with Carole’s nudging and approval, became Finn’s role model, showing him a wonderful example of a strong, honorable man. And Finn was more than receptive.

But above all that, they liked each other. They liked spending time together, going to baseball games, watching shows, bowling, hanging out. Burt attended every one of his football and basketball games without fail. He bought him the Navigator shortly after they moved in together, before they got married, but it wasn’t a bribe. It didn’t have to be. Finn was happy enough as it was, moving into Burt’s bigger house, having the whole basement to settle in to.

It wasn’t a bribe. It was a gift from a man to the teenager who was slowly but surely becoming his son.

She had thought, maybe, that Finn might be close to calling Burt “dad.”

Through all of this, she hadn’t given much thought to Kurt. She certainly hadn’t ever expected him to show up.

It wasn’t malicious – she didn’t _wish_ Kurt wouldn’t show up, wasn’t glad Burt didn’t have his son with him, even if it left a hole in his heart. He seemed perfectly willing to fill with Finn. It had just seemed like Kurt was in the past, lost to time, just as unreachable as Christopher.

And then, one day, they got the call.

Carole didn’t know what was going to happen. She worried, privately, in the secret recesses of her heart, that with Kurt in the picture, Burt’s relationship with Finn might falter. But she shrugged off those thoughts. She prepared the house for his arrival. And she assumed everything would work out.

* * *

“You think I handled things wrong tonight,” Burt said flatly, and it wasn’t a question. She had practically begged him, earlier, after he had come back up to the main floor with bulging black garbage bags fisted in his hands. She had practically begged him not to take them away or get rid of them. To put them in the closet instead, or to just leave them in the trunks of one of the cars.

He had just brushed her off and left, and that had stung. Back when it was the two of them and Finn, he had let her take the lead on the day-to-day parenting, and he had backed her up. With Kurt… well, with Kurt, it had been muddled from the very beginning. From the minute he had met Kurt – or maybe, from the minute Kurt had mentioned his boyfriend – Burt’s main concern seemed to be on all of the things he wanted Kurt not to do – not to wear those clothes, not to talk to his Seattle friends too often, not to pull attention to himself. And maybe she wasn’t being fair to Burt – he did want Kurt to be happy, he wanted Kurt to make friends at school, to get along with Finn (And thankfully, thankfully, that seemed to be happening, though that seemed to be more thanks to Finn than to anything they were doing).

But they honestly didn’t know what they were doing, and Carole didn’t know exactly how to fix it. But she knew it couldn’t keep going the way it was.

“He’s going to need more clothes,” she finally said. “I should take him shopping again tomorrow.” _Yes_ , she wanted to say. _Of course you handled it wrong. He’s hurting._ But it was done. Burt wouldn’t listen anyway. He really had hated those clothes.

“It was for the best,” he said, like he was trying to convince her. He reached out across their bed, and she took his hand, stroking it softly.

“I just hate to see you fight,” she finally said. It really was true – seeing Burt like that, so wild-eyed and angry, hadn’t been a pleasant experience. She had seen him lose his temper before. It was never at her or Finn, thankfully – before tonight, she would have said that the idea was unthinkable – but rather, usually on their behalf. She had seen him get so mad at some drunk boys who weren’t looking where they were going, and walked right into her one night they were out. She’d seen him get so mad he swore up a storm at a basketball ref who made a call against Finn that was apparently unfair. She’d even seen him lose his temper at a snobby waiter once, who kept messing up their order. It had given her a dark, quiet pride then- even as she held his arm, and asked him to calm down and think of his heart – that he was so passionate about her, that she finally once more had someone who wanted to protect her interests. But now she thought she could stand never seeing him like that again.

* * *

The next morning, Kurt didn’t come up for breakfast. They sent Finn down after him twice, but each time, her son returned with a shake of his head. She finally insisted that Finn go on to school without him, and that Burt go to work. “He had a rough day yesterday,” she said carefully. “Let’s let him take today off. I have to take him shopping anyway, we can do that later this morning, make a day out of it. Maybe that will cheer him up.”

So her boys finally left, Finn muttering under his breath about how it was a glee day that day, and Burt… strangely not saying much of anything. He didn’t even remind her not to let Kurt get anything too over the top. It made her wonder how much yesterday was affecting him. They hadn’t really talked about it – they usually did, but Burt could probably tell how much she disapproved of what he did, how much it probably alienated Kurt – but Burt had to have been thinking the same thing even if he was too proud to say it.

Shortly after they left, she ventured into the basement. She really hadn’t been down here much since Kurt moved in. She’d come down a couple of times when the boys were at school, to see if there was anything to scrub or pick up, but Kurt pretty much had everything taken care of. She hadn’t seen a bathroom so clean since the hotel Burt had taken her for their honeymoon.

Kurt was still in bed when she went downstairs, a comforter pulled up to his neck, and his face buried in his pillow. “Kurt?” she said, and paused. He didn’t move, and he didn’t answer. “Kurt, honey, it’s okay. We’re not going to make you go to school today. I was actually thinking, since I’m not working today, that this would be a perfect day for the two of us to go shopping. Maybe we can… I know you, you probably need some more clothes now, and I can get them for you. We don’t have to go to Wal-Mart this time- I was thinking Penny’s? There’s one a little to the north of here, and, and then afterwards, maybe we can go have lunch at a little Thai place that’s right nearby. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Carole hoped so. She didn’t think she’d ever actually eaten Thai food before – she never really ate that much Asian food period – but she wouldn’t be surprised if that was the type of place that might appeal to someone like Kurt.

Kurt, in the meantime, still wasn’t moving or talking. Carole really didn’t know what to do. “I’ll just wait upstairs,” she told the unmoving figure on the bed. “You can just, uh, take your time, take a shower, and meet me upstairs when you’re ready to go.”

So she headed back upstairs, hoping that giving him space was the right answer. Finally, over an hour later, she heard movement down there, heard walking, and thumping, and a shower running. It was another hour after that when Kurt made his appearance at the top of the basement steps. He wore regular jeans and a dark green hoodie. His hair was clean and flat against his forehead, and he had dark circles under his eyes. Carole also noted, not for the first time (Burt had mentioned it first – Burt had been worried about something like this almost from the start) that he seemed thinner, and more fragile than he had when he first came to them. It was pretty obvious he was losing weight, even under the bulk of the hoodie. “Would you like to get something for breakfast first?” she asked him, and he shrugged, and picked up a banana from the counter. He ate it slowly, not responding to any of the small talk she tried to engage him in.

Carole sighed to herself, and kept the smile pasted on to her face as she led him out to the car. The drive wasn’t that long, even though the morning rush hour wasn’t over yet. When they got there, Carole gradually realized that this place alone wasn’t going to be enough to raise Kurt out of his funk. She started off by grabbing him some socks and undershirts and boxers, and he finally spoke by confirming his sizes, but he wouldn’t comment on any of them, or even indicate which ones he might like better or worse. He didn’t even say anything when she tried to tease him by asking him if he wanted the boxers with smiley faces on them, which she figured Kurt would hate, if Finn’s reaction was anything to go by. When it came time for the regular clothes, he still didn’t talk, didn’t want to try anything on, and unlike the last time they went shopping, didn’t even try to sneak over to the women’s section – though thinking about that did give her an idea.

After choosing a couple of generic things for him, she led him over to the women’s section, and tried to look around for something particularly ugly. She really didn’t see anything that she disliked, so she just grabbed the closest thing to her, and held it up for Kurt to inspect. “I’m thinking of buying a few more things for myself,” she said, which was a huge lie, of course. They were going to be spending enough just on Kurt, today, and her wardrobe was fine. But if she was right, this would be worth the extra money.

“It’s not bad, but it needs to be accessorized correctly,” Kurt finally said, to Carole’s relief. 

“Well… I have a couple of necklaces at home, but I don’t wear them that much,” she told him.

Kurt paused, and Carole mentally crossed her fingers. “We should pick up a few signature pieces,” he finally said. Some necklaces that would work a little better, maybe a unique pin or two, depending on their selection. And… do you have your ears pierced?”

“Not yet,” Carole said, as her smile finally became genuine.

In the end, she counted it as a victory, even if it was a small one. After they were done with her, she tried to bring him back over to the men’s section, but he was still uninterested. She picked up a couple more regular shirts for him – things Finn would wear, since that’s all she really had to go on when it came to choosing clothing for teenage boys – then they rang out, and went to the car. The Thai restaurant seemed to be a success too; Kurt seemed perfectly comfortable there, he ordered for both of them, and he ate a decent amount of his dish before having the rest of it wrapped up for leftovers. And she liked her noodles more than she thought she would.

It really wasn’t a bad time, and it really was good that she was bonding with her stepson. At least, she thought they were bonding. Kurt was really hard to read most of the time. Carole really wanted them to get along, for Burt’s sake, for the family’s sake. But more than that, at this point, it was important just to get to know Kurt more. He spent so much of his time at home hiding in the basement, and it was hard enough to coax him up for family meals, much less anything else.

All of the sudden, Carole didn’t want to go home, not when it meant he would find an excuse to pull away again. Not when there was so much to talk about. They had managed to have a superficial conversation at the restaurant, but, while that was definitely progress, she knew Kurt needed more.

She knew he needed his mother, but that wasn’t going to happen. 

Even though he was probably going to shut her out, she could at least try. So when they were back in Lima, she took a few left turns, until they were in front of the old park Finn used to play little league at. It was deserted now, and so she parked, and cut the engine.

“I guess everyone’s still in school,” Kurt said quietly, looking at the empty fields, and lonely playground equipment. He didn’t ask why they were there.

“Kurt…” she said, and stumbled around for the right words. “I’m, I’m sorry. I know things are really hard for you at school. And at home, I guess. I know this whole thing isn’t easy for you. I can’t imagine… But, anyway, if you want… you can talk to me about some of this stuff. My friends say I’m a pretty good listener.”

Kurt was quiet for a while, but Carole waited.

“Talking isn’t going to do any good,” Kurt finally said softly. “Nothing’s going to change. And whenever things do change, it’s only to get worse. If I talk to you, and you talk to him, the only thing that’s probably going to happen is that I’m probably going to get in trouble for complaining.”

He sounded so bitter, Carole thought sadly. “He might listen. He does want you to be happy.”

“No,” Kurt said flatly. “He wants me to be straight.”

She didn’t really have an answer for that. She knew, or at least she had thought she had known, that Burt wasn’t homophobic. Hadn’t they had the Berry’s over for dinner a couple of times over the summer? He had always taken a relaxed “different strokes for different folks” attitude about it. He had never outright said anything bad about gay people, at least that she had heard. When Kurt moved in – it was different. He was so obviously uncomfortable, but whenever they talked about it, it was always about his worries that Kurt wouldn’t be happy, Kurt wouldn’t be safe. He had gotten frustrated, he had gotten discouraged, and he had gotten so, so angry, but he’d still never gotten hateful. She’d never heard him really lash out against gayness, or gay people in general, or Kurt, not in a way that she could really put her finger on, and recognize as homophobia.

But all the same, she couldn’t deny that Kurt was right. Burt did want him to be straight. And she didn’t really know what to do with that.

“He wants you to be happy,” she finally repeated, because it was one piece of truth she could cling to, be sure of. “And I can help. I can talk to him.”

“No, you can’t,” Kurt said. “If you were able to help me, you would have stopped him from trashing all of my things. I know you didn’t agree with that.”

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “You’re right. I didn’t. That wasn’t my decision. But… if we sit down, and talk, I know we can do it calmly and rationally… without tempers running high… maybe we can work some things out.”

Kurt didn’t answer, just shook his head, and looked down.

“Just… do you need anything? Anything else? I’ve helped you before,” she said, feeling desperate. He looked like he was shutting down on her again, and she didn’t know how to encourage him, how to connect. “Maybe… do you need more minutes on your phone? I helped you with that before.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kurt said, still not looking at her. “I broke up with Adrian. It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh,” Carole said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. That’s a shame… I guess?” Kurt just shrugged, but she could see the pain in it. “Well… surely there’s something?”

“Convince him to send me back to Seattle,” Kurt told her, but he said it without any heat, without any desire.

“Honey, you know I can’t do that,” she told him sadly.

“Well then –-” Kurt started to say, but he cut himself off. But there, there, Carole heard, was a flicker of… something. Something big enough that he had stopped himself.

Carole waited.

“Convince him to pull me out of school then,” Kurt said, voice low, face still blank. “I can’t go back there. I can’t.”

“Tell me,” Carole said. “Tell us. Tell us what’s going on, who’s doing what… your father can go to the principal. He can deal with it. You’ve just got to give him a little information. Anything.”

Kurt’s face twisted for a moment, like he was trying not to cry, but then he gained control of himself again. “I can’t,” he said. “I… it doesn’t matter, anyway. I just – can’t you just say you’re homeschooling me? Sign me up for some online classes? I can’t… I just can’t.”

Carole’s first instinct was to remind him about the glee club, about Finn and Rachel and the other friends he was slowly gaining. To try and convince him that it wasn’t that bad, and that they would support him, and that he would make it through. But she took another look at his face, and shut herself up, because she knew her instincts were wrong. She didn’t know anything about the situation. About what it was like to have to go there, day after day, about how much other kids must hate him, to throw pee and probably other horrible things at him. 

Kurt’s shoulder’s shook a little. Carole took a deep breath.

“Kurt… honey…” she said. “I know I’m not your mother, that I’ll never be your mother, but, I- I’m _a_ mother. And I want to help you. I promise, please, just… I want to help you.”

He started crying, covering his face up, as though trying to hide it from her. 

“It’s okay,” she said. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” And it wasn’t, but what was she supposed to say?

“He said he would kill me,” Kurt told her, still crying, face still covered, but she heard it perfectly. “He said he would kill me.” Suddenly, Kurt jerked his hands down, and looked up, looking her in the eye. “He meant it,” he said, almost pleadingly. “He wasn’t… he wasn’t kidding.”

“I believe you, honey, it’s okay, I believe you,” Carole found herself saying before she could even think about how to respond. She still wasn’t sure she really understanding what was going on, and she wanted to ask him a million questions, but she stopped herself, and put her arms carefully on his back instead. Kurt leaned into her and continued to cry, and she just continued to murmur vague reassurances as his tears wet her shirt, and her thoughts raced. As he calmed down, her chest began to feel sick with guilt (because they _knew_ he was miserable, and they _knew_ he was miserable at school, but it was just so much easier to tell themselves that any adjustments were hard, and never question beyond the surface).

Kurt finally lifted his head, and started talking to her, telling her everything from the beginning, and he looked more clear-eyed and alive than he had in awhile, a righteous sort of anger burning in his voice. And when he finished talking, he looked at her with the eyes of a boy who’d grown up trusting and believing wholly in his mother. He looked at her like he thought she could help him. And she cringed internally, because she knew what she was going to have to tell him.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, meeting his eyes, and rubbing his back. “I promise you, I promise, we’re going to keep you safe. You’re not going to have to go back to that school, not as long as that boy’s still there. Now, let’s go home – I’m going to call your father back from the shop early, because he needs to know about this as soon as possible.”

Kurt, predictably, jerked himself back away from her hand, and closed his face off at the mention, at the reminder, of his father. “No,” he said vehemently. “I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to tell him. He’s – he’s going to say that it’s my fault.” Carole shook her head and started to deny it, but he kept talking over her. “He’s going to say that I asked for it! He’s going to, to blame my clothes, or blame me, or whatever.”

“He loves you,” Carole told him. “He’s going to be mad at that boy, for hurting you. He’s going to help you.”

Kurt just shook his head and looked out the window, away from her. Carole started the car.

* * *

Burt was furious. Carole had expected that, she understood it, but all the same, it wasn’t… pleasant.

When they had gotten home, Carole had implored Kurt to wait with her, to tell his father what was going on, but he had refused, and immediately headed towards the basement, shutting the door firmly and loudly behind him. When Burt came home, Carole had sat him down and filled him in as best she could with everything she remembered Kurt telling her.

She’d never seen him so angry, not even the day before. They had gone downstairs once she had finished telling him, to find Kurt huddled on his bed and refusing to make eye contact with either of them. 

Carole wasn’t wrong about what she had told Kurt – Burt didn’t blame him; Burt was ranting about what he would do to that Karofsky boy, mostly, but he still interjected the occasional “Why didn’t you TELL me, you should have TOLD me,” and Kurt shivered a little on his bed every time he did that. 

After the initial burst of anger was yelled out, Burt decided to go to the school to deal with things, and they both tried to convince Kurt to go with him, to tell the principal what was going on, and hopefully get Karofsky expelled. Kurt shook his head and refused to move, and finally told them in a low voice that Carole had promised that he didn’t have to go back to that school while Karofsky was still there. Burt had finally just left alone. Carole kind of felt sorry for that principal.

Kurt still didn’t talk to her even after Burt left, so she headed back upstairs, and, on a whim, started baking a chocolate chip marble cake from scratch. By the time Finn came home, it had finished cooling, and she was slathering the frosting on.

“Awesome,” Finn said, face brightening as soon as he saw what she was doing. “I thought I smelled something delicious. What’s the occasion?” Carole put down the spatula, and went over to give her son a hug, because he would never be too old, or too tall for it. Distracted by the cake, he didn’t wiggle away or make a token protest, but rather squeezed her back happily.

“I just felt like baking,” she told him. “You don’t even have to wait for dinner for a piece, but at least let me finish decorating it.” He nodded happily and fixed himself a big glass of milk, and she let him eat two pieces, and had one herself. 

Burt came in shortly after, as she was wondering if anyone would mind sandwiches and boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner (Heck, Finn would probably prefer it). His face was still stormy, but it held a grim sort of satisfaction that let her know he’d been successful. 

“You did it?” she asked, just to be sure.

He nodded, and banged on the basement door. “Kurt! Get up here! I have news!”

“What’s going on?” her son asked, looking to her. 

She hadn’t told him; they were having too good a time over their cake. “We found out more about what’s been happening to Kurt at school,” she told him softly, as they heard Kurt slowly start to come up the stairs. “One of the boys- Karofsky?” Finn nodded, his face pinched and worried. “He – well, we found out that he threatened to kill Kurt. So Burt went to the school to try and deal with it.” Finn’s eyes bugged a little at that information, and he looked distressed. They both looked at Kurt as he came into the kitchen and set himself down in a chair.

“I took care of it,” Burt told them, pride evident in his voice. “Figgins tried to give me the run-around, but I threatened that school with everything. They finally dragged the kid and his father in, and his father started to protest that Kurt should be there if he was gonna make accusations against his son, but I told him what was going on, and that shut him up right quick.”

“You told him everything?” Kurt asked quietly.

“You’re damn right I did. He deserved to know. I told him that his kid was gay, and was physically and sexually harassing mine because of it, and that he told you he’d kill you to shut you up about it.”

“Wait,” Finn said. “What? _What?_ ”

“It’s why he’s been harassing me so much,” Kurt told him, voice still quiet. “It wasn’t just… regular homophobia.”

“Yeah, so anyway,” Burt continued, “Karofsky just comes out with a stream of filth I’m not even gonna repeat, and his father just cuts him off at the knees. Asks him if that’s why he’s been so different lately, angry and secretive and getting in to trouble, and whatever. Asks him if it’s true, if he’s really gay. And Karofsky basically just started crying like a girl, and begging his father not to hate him.”

“What did his father say?” Kurt asked.

Burt shrugged. “Oh, they had a moment. He said that it was okay that he was gay, and he just seemed relieved to have an explanation for his son’s behavior. He did try to talk to him about how taking stuff out on you was horrible, but that boy was gone, he wasn’t listening. I don’t think he stopped crying the whole way back to his father’s car. Anyway, his father basically agreed to deal with him, and get him counseling, and more importantly, he and Figgins agreed that McKinley wasn’t the best place for him anymore. Karofsky’s father withdrew him voluntarily; come tomorrow, he won’t be there anymore.”

“That’s it?” Finn asked, appalled. “But he should be arrested!”

“I don’t disagree,” Burt said. “But his father promised me, man to man, he’d take care of it.”

“Is that okay with you Kurt?” Carole asked. “Are you going to feel okay going back to school now? I know he isn’t the only one that bothers you.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.” He still looked unhappy. “I didn’t want to out him like that,” he said, looking at Burt. “You’re sure… his father seemed okay with it? He’s not going to take him home and beat him, or send him to make-me-straight counseling or anything, you don’t think?”

“Nah,” Burt said. “Took it surprisingly well.”

“Okay,” Kurt said. “Okay. I’ll be okay to go to school tomorrow. Don’t want to get behind.”

“Great,” Burt said, and Carole saw some of the tension leave him as he smiled. “Now, I don’t think Carole’s going to mind because it looks like she concentrated on dessert instead of dinner today, so, who’s with me on ordering a pizza? Or two. We can make one a meat lovers supreme.”

“All right!” Finn agreed, as though he was starving, and had never even heard of cake.

“Not hungry,” Kurt said, and he stood up, and headed to the basement door.

“Now hold on a minute,” Burt said. “Where are you going? I figured we could have some family time, now that everything’s settled. We can play a board game while we’re waiting for the pizza to come. What do you guys think, Yahtzee or Monopoly?”

“No thank you,” Kurt said, and he disappeared down the stairs. Burt almost looked offended. He definitely looked surprised, as though they didn’t see Kurt disappear every day after school.

“We can still have pizza, right?” Finn asked. 

“Of course,” Carole assured him. 

There was a little rap sound at the outside door, and they turned to see Rachel there, smiling and giving a little wave.

“Come on in,” Burt said.

“Hey,” Finn said. “Kurt’s still in kind of a mood right now, so if you’re here to see him, it might not be the best time.”

Rachel smiled brightly, and held up a binder in front of her. “I’m actually here to talk to Mr. Hummel, if you have the time, sir,” she said. 

“I’ll order the pizza,” Carole called after her husband, as he shrugged and followed Rachel into the living room.

“I hope that has nothing to do with me,” Finn muttered under his breath.

“Maybe you should go downstairs and wait,” Carole told him. “And don’t push, but maybe see if Kurt feels like talking. It’s been a long day. And he still tolerates you best out of all of us.”

“Yeah, okay,” Finn said, swiping a bit of frosting off of the side of the cake, and licking it off of his finger. “Just don’t forget the meat lovers. Supreme.”

* * *

Finn headed down to the basement where Kurt was already curled up on his bed, head in his pillow where he didn't have to look at anybody else. "Hi," Finn told him, because he didn't know what he was supposed to say. He kind of wanted to say _I'm sorry_ , or maybe _why didn't you tell me?_ , because all of this had happened, and he had known more than anyone, but he hadn't known enough. Because neither of them had told either of their parents for the longest time, and now they knew, and were able to deal with the worst of it in the space of an afternoon.

And yet, Kurt was still lying there like he was miserable, like nothing had even changed at all. He hadn't even thanked Burt, and he didn't even want any pizza. 

"We missed you at glee today," Finn said. "Do you think you're coming back tomorrow? I mean, it's okay if you don't want to come back to school tomorrow, but if you did, that'd be good too."

Kurt eventually rolled over, and looked at him. "Your mom bought me a lot of clothes today," he said. "They're all boring. I don't think I'll ever want to go back to school."

Finn kinda felt like he needed to defend his mom, for some reason, but he also knew how seriously Kurt took his clothes, so he decided not to say anything.

"I guess I'll go, though," Kurt finally continued. "If Karofsky's really gone, hanging out there will probably beat hanging out here.”

Finn didn't really know what was all that bad about hanging out at home. Right now, with cake resting comfortably in his stomach, a pizza loaded with meat in his immediate future, and his parents just one floor above them, home seemed like the perfect place to be. But he guessed, since Kurt never really did much outside of school, or in the rest of the house, really, these four walls they were in could get pretty boring. Especially since he was pretty sure Kurt never turned on the Xbox when he wasn't around.

"I do have homework for you to do," Finn told him, suddenly remembering. "It's all pretty stupid. I can, like, pretend I accidently left it in my locker, if you want."

“No, you might as well give it to me,” Kurt said. Finn grabbed it, and his own work, and they sat down there for a while, reading and writing in silence. Finn wondered if Rachel was still up there, and why she didn’t want to talk to him, when she always wanted to talk to him. His mom called them up for pizza eventually, but Kurt swore he ate a big lunch, and wasn’t hungry.

Finn went up and had five pieces before coming back down. His mom and Burt were quiet, and didn’t seem to be in good moods. They didn’t tell him what Rachel wanted to talk about, and didn’t even try and ask him to get Kurt, or stay and play board games or anything, so after he was reasonably full, he headed back down.

Kurt was not doing homework, he noticed, as he arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Kurt was on his cell phone. He was also hunched up and crying a little, and Finn didn’t know if he was supposed to go pretend he wasn’t there and go back upstairs, or what. But Kurt started telling the person on the phone “I’ve got to go, no, I’ve got to, I’ll call you later, I promise,” so Finn sat back down on his bed.

Kurt hung up his phone with a beep, but he didn’t stop crying. “That wasn’t your boyfriend, was it?” Finn asked him, because it wasn’t cool if his boyfriend was making him cry.

“No,” Kurt told him. “I, I actually broke up with my boyfriend last week.”

“Oh,” Finn said. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Kurt replied. His breath was still hitching, and he was still wiping tears from his eyes.

“He didn’t cheat on you, did he?” Finn asked him.

Kurt shook his head. “It just wasn’t going to work out. Not with him in Seattle, and me… here.”

“So who were you talking to?” Finn asked, honestly curious about what was making him cry, after he’d been dry-eyed about so many things. 

“My friend Sandy, from Seattle.” Kurt told him. “She… I kinda turned my phone off a few days ago. After I broke it off with Adrian. I just… with everything… I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, to deal with anything else. I guess she and some of my other friends tried to get in touch with me as soon as they heard about the break-up, and got really freaked out when they couldn’t get in touch with me. Sandy said they were worried I’d gone crazy or something, because she knew how much I loved Adrian, and she didn’t see why we’d ever break up. But she’s not here, and she wouldn’t understand.” Kurt gave Finn a small, shaky smile, as though he thought Finn would understand. “Anyway, she said that they knew I was living on limited minutes, so they were going to give me a couple of days to make sure I didn’t just need to get more, and then they were going to call the landline here. And Sandy said that her dad said that if they couldn’t get in touch with me, or find out what was going on that way, he was going to get them plane tickets out here, to come and make sure I was okay.” Kurt paused again, and wiped his eyes, which were finally starting to dry up. “I don’t know how well I convinced her that everything’s okay, but at least she’s not panicked any more. And she said she’d call everyone else who was worried too, and let them know – she made sure to tell me that would include Adrian.”

“That’s really cool,” Finn said, trying his best to smile and nod along. It really was cool that Kurt had a lot of good friends that worried about him, but beyond that, Kurt was actually opening up to him and telling him something, which was both totally a brother thing to do and proof that he wasn’t mad at Finn for failing to protect him from Karofsky.

“Yeah,” Kurt agreed, and he smiled again. “Sandy’s parents, they were always really nice to me. And I do miss everyone. I guess I’ve been a really bad friend. But, it’s hard, you know? It seems like it takes all of my energy just to survive here.” 

Finn didn’t know what to say to that, so he just kept nodding. That seemed to be enough for Kurt, who leaned forward on his bed to pick up his homework sheet again. They both ended up finishing way before it was time to go to bed, and Kurt, instead of falling asleep early again, ended up sitting at the foot of his bed, and silently watching as Finn grabbed his console and pretended he was a sheriff in the Wild West.

* * *

The next day, Kurt did go to school. And Finn made sure he was escorted everywhere, even though it meant he was late for three of his classes. When they got home, his mom and Burt told them that they were going out to that Italian place again, which made Finn happy, as he was sure he could go for at least six bowels of their endless pasta special right then and there. Kurt didn’t seem happy, though. His mood had deflated as soon as they had gotten in the door, and he didn’t say anything to Finn’s mom or Burt at all, even when Burt had asked them if Italian was okay, or if they had any other suggestions. Finn had answered that Italian was _great_ , but Kurt had shrugged one shoulder and tried to escape to the basement. His mom had briefly stopped him, saying that maybe everyone should sit down first, and talk about their day, but Kurt had told her that they were going to eat at the restaurant together, and could talk then, and headed down the stairs before anyone could say anything else. Finn ended up talking about both of their days, or at least his and what he knew about Kurt’s, over day-old cake which still tasted amazing. Burt sat down and had a small piece with them too, and his mom had laughed about them all ruining their appetites before going to a nice restaurant, but Finn and Burt assured her that supper was still hours away, and they still had appetites left.

“Finn’s still a growing boy,” Burt said, smacking him on the back. “Extra cake isn’t going to hurt him, not every once in a while. And besides, we don’t want it to go bad.”

“Yes, but what’s our excuse?” his mom said with a smile.

Finn was glad everything seemed to be back to normal today. Even Kurt had seemed more lively in glee, and he had been talking to Mercedes and Rachel and Tina and even Mike in the halls and in the cafeteria. Sure, he had escaped to the basement again, but maybe he would be more talkative during dinner. 

“Hey,” Burt told him, breaking him out of his thoughts. “I know you want to spend a lot of time with that girl of yours, but I was wondering if you could save this Saturday for me. I want to bring you into the garage for a few hours.”

“Sure,” Finn agreed happily. 

“I want you to start working on some of your certifications again,” Burt continued. “I know we got distracted from all that for a while, but, if you’re still interested, there’s no time like the present.”

“I’m still interested, absolutely,” Finn said. He knew, from the slightly guilty look on Burt’s face, that he was thinking about Kurt, and thinking that they had all gotten distracted because of him moving in, which was probably actually mostly true. But there was also the fact that Quinn was super high maintenance, and demanded way more of his time than Rachel, who liked to spend time with him but was also often busy with her own lessons and practices and projects. He didn’t really mind spending the extra time with Quinn – especially since she was letting him get to second pretty often since they had gotten back together – but he also did want to spend more time at the shop. He had gone once since Sectionals, and that had been sucky, since Kurt had refused to go and Burt had spent all of the time being angry in his office, and zero time helping him learn stuff. “Wait, is Kurt going too?” he asked. He knew the answer already- Kurt was most certainly not going – he just hoped that had finally sunk in on Burt.

“I figure we can invite him, in case he wants to come,” Burt said after a slight pause. “But if he doesn’t want to come, I’m not going to force him. And even if he does come, we’ll let him know it’s just to watch, because we’ll be working with you, and what you need to learn.”

“All right,” Finn agreed. “I’m looking forward to it.”

* * *

It was harder than he thought it would be to go back to McKinley.

He had loved school, once upon a time; loved seeing his friends and passing notes in class, loved being in chorus, and going to the basketball games, even loved the academics, the learning. It was interesting. It was fun.

But McKinley was a pale shadow of his old school. The classes were boring, most of the students were hostile, and the only bearable thing about it was the glee club. But in the end, that was enough to get him out of the basement. He spent too much time in that basement, he knew that, but there never seemed to be any other choices. His world had gotten so much smaller since he was dragged here. He didn’t have a car, and the only thing around the neighborhood was more neighborhood. 

So he picked himself up the next morning, and forced himself to get dressed in a plain black shirt and jeans, choke down a dry piece of toast, and leave with Finn. And it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, wasn’t as bad as he feared. Azimio and a bunch of his other tormenters were still there, and glaring at him extra hard, but Karofsky was gone and that made all of the difference. Plus, Finn and the other New Directions members were around a whole lot more. It was awkward at times, but then, when he was in class with Sam, or laughing with Tina at lunch, he actually started to relax, coils of tension in his shoulders he hadn’t even been aware of slowly releasing, so that he was still tense, just… less so.

Burt had forced them to go out to dinner that first night, back to that Italian place. It was a lot more awkward than the first time, since he and Carole tried to get him to talk about his day the whole time. He assured them multiple times that Finn was watching out for him, that nobody bothered him, but they kept trying to talk. He stuck to one word answers, and pushed his pasta around his plate, trying to make it look like he was eating more than he was.

The next few days went on like that. School became more and more bearable, as Finn and his friends kept close, and Azimio and the other jocks didn’t seem to be planning anything. He joined in on the songs in glee, and then on Thursday night, Mercedes came over and they hung out.

But then the weekend came. 

Burt took Finn in to the garage to work on Saturday. He invited Kurt to come as well, but didn’t push it when Kurt refused. Instead, he and Carole woke up early, and went to the farmer’s market. Kurt figured that he had the better part of the deal, at least until the next day, when Burt said that he wanted to take Kurt out for lunch, just the two of them. He hadn’t wanted to do anything like that since that first week in Lima, and it made Kurt suspicious.

“I don’t feel like it,” he said. “Carole and I bought a lot of fresh vegetables yesterday; maybe we can make something instead.”

“Kurt, I really want to go out, just the two of us,” his father tried again.

“Are you going to make me?” Kurt shot back. He wasn’t actually sure what his father’s response would be. Honestly, he just wanted to go downstairs and hide until his father left. Maybe clean his bathroom. He didn’t want a big battle with the other man. But a little fight would still be better than spending the whole afternoon with him in some dive.

“I’m not going to force you,” Burt said, and Kurt waited for the unspoken _but_ he could hear in his father’s voice. “…but if you go, we can stop by the convenience store on the way home, and I could buy you some extra minutes for your phone.”

“How many minutes?” Kurt asked. Because it was bad enough that he was considering letting himself be bought off – he didn’t want to be bought off by a pittance. And he could really use those minutes. Carole had been nice enough to buy him an extra phone card here or there, but ever since he had freaked out his friends by cutting off contact for a few days, everyone was worried and trying to keep in contact. Plus he was making friends with some of the glee clubbers as well, and they were talking more and more, which was nice, but he only had 14 minutes left, total, and that was probably going to be used up before the end of the day.

“120 minutes,” his father said. 

Kurt shook his head. “500.”

“Fine,” Kurt’s dad said, after a pause, and with a bit of a disgruntled look. “Be ready to go at 12:30.”

Kurt was ready to go right then – he had done his hair as best he could that morning, and as much as he would have loved to put on some awesome clothes and totally scandalize his father, that remained impossibility. He wondered for a moment if he could get away with artfully ripping some of his boring jeans, but decided that was impractical, and probably not worth it. So he went down to the basement, and worked on sorting out the bottles in the bathroom until he heard his father calling that he was late.

The place Burt ended up taking him was luckily not a sports bar this time, though Kurt wasn’t too pleased when they entered to see an expanded deli counter filled with cheeses, and meats, and all sorts of decadent desserts. There was a big sit-down area in the back, and their waitress led them through it, and gave them a seat near the back wall. 

“I figure this is a good place to go, since we both eat healthy, yeah?” Burt asked him as they both opened their menus. 

“I guess,” Kurt said noncommittally. And at least it was true; it looked like he would at least have options here. There were fruit plates, and plenty of salad options, and some of the wraps didn’t have too much crap on them. He eventually ended up ordering the black bean whole wheat wrap with fresh fruit on the side; Burt ordered the chicken salad wrap with coleslaw. 

“You know, that’s really not the healthiest thing you could’ve got here,” Kurt told him after the waitress went away, and Burt fixed him with a look that said he wanted to _talk_. “The mayo in that wrap alone…”

“It’s still better than a lot of things,” Burt said, and he sounded defensive. “Better than I used to eat. Anyway, you’re not really one who should be judging on eating habits – look at yourself, you’re practically a beanpole.”

Kurt scrunched his shoulders together, and looked down at the tablecloth. “I eat fine,” he said. “Some people are just naturally skinny.”

When the food came, and Kurt picked at it. Burt started off slow too, but eventually started taking bigger bites, and finished it off quickly. When he was done, he stared at Kurt, and his mostly full plate. It was honestly disconcerting. Kurt dipped his head down lower, and ate one of his grapes.

“I’m worried about you,” Burt finally said.

“I’m fine,” Kurt said firmly, not knowing whether he was trying to talk about food again, or was trying to start a conversation about the situation at school. Either way, he didn’t want to engage. 

“Carole and I, we’re both worried about you,” Burt continued. “I know you and Finn keep saying that everything’s going okay at school, but you’re still… we can tell that you’re still on edge. I want you to know that, any problems that might happen, you can count on me. Anything happens, I’ll go in and deal with it, same way I dealt with that Karofsky kid. You can count on me, I won’t let anyone push you around.”

Kurt didn’t even know how to respond to that. “I told you, things are fine at school,” he finally settled on saying.

“You’re not fine,” Burt said. “I can see it. I know you might not trust me because of some of the things that have gone down, but I’ve always had your best interests at heart. You’ve got to learn to trust me. I’m on your side.”

“Well, aren’t you full of platitudes today,” Kurt snapped before he could stop himself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Burt asked, having the gall to actually sound hurt.

“It means that, fine, okay, I will come to you with any problem that you didn’t _directly cause_. Unfortunately, those seem to be most of my problems these days.”

“Don’t do that, Kurt,” his father said, sounding upset. “I haven’t done anything wrong. It was your mother –”

“Don’t blame this on her,” Kurt yelled, and he didn’t even care if some of the other tables were looking over at them now.

“She’s a _criminal_ ,” Burt told him vehemently. “She _stole_ you from me, I _rescued_ you, do not talk to me like that. I’ve done nothing but try to protect you, and you… you just keep…”

Burt trailed off, and they both sat in tense silence for a minute. Finally, Burt spoke again. “I mean it, Kurt, I just want to help. I know you’re probably not ready to hear it right now, but I care about you, so much, and I want you to be okay. Please, please just promise me you’ll tell me if anyone else starts to give you a hard time. And everything else… it’ll get better, okay? You’ll understand, someday. Soon. And the more you get to know me, the more you’ll realize, I’m not such a bad guy.”

His father tried to smile at him, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

“I think I’m done eating now. Are you ready to go?” Kurt responded quietly.

They drove to the convenience store, then home in silence. At one point, Kurt looked down at the telephone cards his father had pressed into his hands, and saw that there were two of them, for 300 minutes each. It felt like the world’s smallest consolation prize.

* * *

After school on Monday, Burt and Carole took them out to visit another likely house. This one had four bedrooms, and three baths, and Carole seemed impressed with the porch-like balcony outside the second story master bedroom. Kurt thought that the floorboards were too creaky, and that there wasn’t enough storage space in the kitchen, but he kept his mouth shut, because Finn really seemed enthused about it, and Finn hadn’t said one cross word about the fact that Kurt never seemed to leave their shared room. When they got home, Kurt and Carole made a tofu dish that Burt and Finn unsuccessfully pretended to like. Kurt wasn’t surprised when Finn snuck back upstairs later that night for a cookie raid.

That week in glee, Kurt sang another song – Madonna’s Frozen this time – and it really was a rush. He still envisioned himself on that stage in New York City, at the Nationals competition, singing a solo with everyone enraptured… but nothing had been decided yet (even though it was coming up soon), and they didn’t know what they were going to sing, much less who was going to sing it.

In the meantime, as that week progressed, Finn seemed to get more and more stressed out, and he spent a lot more time at Quinn’s. Apparently, the junior prom was coming up soon, and it was a big deal. Kurt didn’t think much about it, until he realized that it would be prom time back home in Seattle too, and that he would be missing it, and then he felt it like a vice around his heart. And even though it hurt, even though talking without being able to see them, to be there with them, made him feel even more removed from everything, he called Sandy that night to talk about what she was doing for her prom. Then he called Mei-Ling, and then Cassie, because Mei-Ling said that Cassie was having trouble deciding on what style to go with. 

He was in full lecture mode when Finn finally got home and trotted down the stairs, and Finn gave him a weird look as he lectured Cassie on the danger of gaudy jewelry choices.

“I just don’t get this prom stuff,” Finn told him when he hung up. “Everyone’s acting like it’s a big deal, and it isn’t even our senior prom, it’s just our junior prom. It’s just one stupid night, where people have to dress up in fancy, uncomfortable clothes.”

“Where people get to dress up in fancy, uncomfortable clothes,” Kurt corrected him with a smile. “We have so few chances for glamour in our everyday lives. Can you blame people for being excited about dressing up, taking pictures, going out?”

“Quinn’s just acting like it’s bigger than all that,” Finn said. “She has her heart set on being prom queen. Only one person can even be prom queen, and I don’t think she’ll have any fun if she doesn’t win it. It’s stressing me out.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said. “Tiaras are very attractive and elegant, though. I can understand how some people get worked up. Do you think she has a good chance of winning?”

“I guess so,” Finn said gloomily.

* * *

That Friday night, Kurt went out with Mercedes, Tina, Mike, Artie, and Brittany for Dim Sum and an early movie. It was a lot of fun, and apparently he really liked the movie, because afterwards, Tina came over to him, gave him a small hug, and smiled, telling him that he had a nice laugh, and it was good to hear it. It made Kurt pause, because- yes. He was having _fun_. He was _laughing_. It seemed almost crazy. It seemed almost normal. But as much as he missed Seattle and his old friends, he wasn’t going to deny that these were his friends now too, and that it was nice to hang out with them on a Friday night.

He was still in a good mood when he arrived home, and he slipped downstairs and shot off a few texts before starting his nightly moisturizing ritual. He made it to bed and had dozed off when he was woken up by Finn’s voice calling down shakily from the top of the stairs. “Kurt? Are you here? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kurt replied. “What is it?”

“Uh, you should come up here,” Finn answered, and Kurt immediately threw off his sheets and headed up the stairs, because whatever was going on, was obviously _not_ good.

“What is it?” he repeated in the kitchen. Finn was looking out the open front door, where Kurt could spy his father and Carole. He pushed passed Finn, and headed out the door and down the outside step, the ground cold on his bare feet. 

He could see it as soon as he got out there; the outside light was weak, but bright enough to show the three letters smeared on the side of the house, written with blood-red paint, and reaching over a foot tall each: F A G.

“We’ll paint over it,” his father said. “I’ll paint over it tonight, I have some extra cans in the shed.” 

Kurt pulled his gaze away from the words, and looked at his father. Burt was exuding anger; his jaw was clenched, and even in the poor light, he could see the lines practically sticking out of his forehead. 

“Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police?” Carole asked.

“No,” Burt said. “It won’t do any good. I’ll paint over it.”

Kurt wondered if it was Karofsky who did it, Karofsky sneaking and creeping and right outside his house. Or maybe it was Azimio, with some of the other jocks from school. Or maybe it was all of them.

“It wasn’t here when I got home,” he said, before he registered that it was a stupid thing to say.

His father looked at him, and he cringed. “How was tonight?” his father asked. “Did anyone bother you?”

“No,” he said. “We didn’t see anyone. Nothing happened, we just hung out.”

“I can help you paint over it,” Finn offered from the doorway. “Do you want me to go and get the paint?” Burt nodded, and Finn came out, and walked around the corner.

Carole came over to Kurt, and gave him a quick hug. “Make sure to tell us if anything ever happens, okay?” she asked. “We want you to have fun, but we also want to make sure you’re safe.”

Kurt looked over at his father, who was still angry, and seemed to be glaring at the letters as though his eyes could shoot turpentine. Kurt felt the urge to point out that this had happened even though the most daring thing he’d worn all week was his solid red tee. But he swallowed it back. “Do you need me to help?” he asked instead.

“No, I’ll take care of it,” his father replied. He turned back to Kurt, who braced himself again. “You should get back to bed,” he said. I’ll send Finn down too, this is just a one person job.”

Kurt looked at the broad, ugly letters again. “Thanks,” he finally said. “I… thank you.” Not knowing what else to do, he headed back into the house.

The next day, the words were painted over, as if they’d never been there.

* * *

Back in Seattle, back before he had to carefully choose which of his outfits he needed to salvage and bring with him, and which weren’t worth using the limited space, Kurt had an adequate outfit that could be used for a formal event like a prom.

Though in all honesty, if he was getting ready for prom back in Seattle, he wouldn’t have used that suit anyway; his mom would have kicked in some extra money and Kurt would have trawled every shop in the greater city area until he had the perfect outfit.

But still, it would have been worth the back-up. Here, now, he had nothing. He had less than nothing; he didn’t even have his sewing machine. Carole might possible have one, but it didn’t matter, because as much talent and elegance as he might have, he was not Scarlett O’Hara, and he could not pull off dressing up in curtains.

So when Mr. Schuester announced that the New Directions would be providing the music for the junior prom this year, Kurt almost immediately went into fashionista panic mode. How in the world was he supposed to attend a prom?

“Don’t worry,” Finn had told him when he expressed his frustration on the way home that day. “Burt’s taking me to this shop? It’s owned by this guy he knows, and he says I can get a discount. I’m sure he’ll hook you up too.”

“Great,” Kurt muttered back, frustrated. Because even if wearing one of the boring, tacky suits he was sure that shop had was better than showing up in the custom-made duct tape suit he had briefly imagined, he had already half-decided that his outfit situation was the perfect way to excuse himself from attending. And the more he thought about it, the more he really didn’t want to go. He didn’t have a date (and even the thought of that, of going with someone, made him think of Adrian, made his stomach hurt), he barely knew anyone, and as much as he loved to perform, he wasn’t sure anything he sang would get a good response. Not going really seemed like a good solution. But Mr. Schuster said it was something the whole group was doing, and Burt agreed to take Finn and him to the shop on Wednesday, so it didn’t look like he had a choice. Not without kicking up a fuss, and… it wasn’t worth it. Not when he was honestly trying to be friends with these kids. He would just choose the least objectionable suit, and stand in the back and sip punch the whole time, if he had to. He could get through it.

* * *

On Tuesday night, Burt and Carole went out to go to some meeting, leaving a couple $20s behind to cover pizza. Finn took the opportunity to order a deep dish meat-lovers greasy mess. Kurt cooked himself a stir-fry and tried to get Finn to eat at least a couple of his vegetables, but Finn's stomach had five slices in it before Kurt had even finished cooking.

It was a good meal, and a good evening – he and Finn took their food into the living room and used the tray tables to watch TV as they ate, a couple episodes of Cash Cab first and then they found a channel that was playing Ghostbusters. They made it to the end credits before they realized Burt and Carole were later than they said they'd be. It wasn't super late though, so they just hung out upstairs for a while longer, Finn glancing at his cell phone every once in a while. Finn turned on Tosh.0 eventually, and Kurt left to do the dishes for most of it.

"Hey!" Finn said, clicking off the TV, and standing up with an easy smile when his mom and Kurt's dad finally came in the side door. "What's... is everything okay?"

They didn’t look okay. They didn’t look hurt, but they kind of looked… haunted. As though they’d witnessed a big traffic accident on the way home, or just got a phone call that someone was sick.

“We’re fine,” Carole answered for them, giving a small, reassuring smile. “We just got… caught up at the meeting. Stayed a little late.”

“Oh,” Finn said. “What was the meeting, anyway?”

“PFLAG,” Burt answered hoarsely, and by the way Finn immediately looked over at him, Kurt knew he knew what the acronym stood for, or at least what the meeting would’ve been about. “Lima has a branch over at Rhodes State College. They meet once a month,” he continued.

“Oh,” Kurt said numbly, not quite knowing what his response should be. “And you, you wanted to go?”

“Yeah,” Carole said after a pause, after seeing if Burt wanted to answer. “We, we wanted – we want to learn more, to know how we can help more.” She paused again, then continued. “We know it’s been really hard for you.”

“Ok,” Kurt said. “I guess… I’m glad you went. I hope you didn’t think it was too boring.”

His father gave a short, barking laugh. “No, it was… I guess I should have gone weeks ago. I… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kurt said, and he shifted uncomfortably, the familiar urge to escape down to the basement creeping over him. It was good that they had gone to the meeting, he knew that. He should be happy. But his father was looking at him the way he had looked at him that first day when he had walked in the door; he was practically tearing up, he looked overwhelmed and out of his element, and he was just… staring at him. Like he thought Kurt could just blink right out of existence at any point.

“I don’t… Can I hug you?” his father asked, taking a small step forward. Kurt braced himself, and let Burt put his arms around him and squeeze him gently. “I’ll do better,” his father told him roughly. “I’ll do better.”

* * *

Finally, Burt and Carole let them go back down to the basement. Kurt didn’t know exactly what he was feeling. Confused, at the very least. He certainly didn’t want to get his hopes up that things – that Burt – would really change.

“This is good, right?” Finn said from across the room. “PFLAG. That’s like, to support gay people. Right? He’s trying to, you know, get involved?” 

“PFLAG,” Kurt said. “It’s actually meant to support parents and friends of people who come out. Like, if they’re having a hard time with it, they can learn how to deal. How to be supportive.”

“So it’s _really_ good for Burt,” Finn said.

“Yeah,” Kurt said. “I guess. It depends how much he really listens. I guess it depends who else is at the meeting to talk to. My mother belonged to a great group, back in Seattle.”

“Oh,” Finn said. “Your mother had trouble dealing too?”

“No,” Kurt said quickly. “No. She… you actually weren’t wrong before. They do a lot to support the gay community as well. Fundraisers, and awareness projects, things like that. And whenever people came in, having a hard time, and looking for ways to deal… she was one of the ones to talk to them. You know, giving advice on acceptance, helping people separate fact from fiction. Things like that. She was… really passionate about it.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool, I guess,” Finn said, and he sounded like he honestly did mean it. Like he was honestly interested.

Kurt felt himself tear up a little, and fought against it, but found himself continuing to talk. “She was really great,” he said. “She… she was always so accepting of who I was… she was always so welcoming to my friends, and even my boyfriends. She had a full time job, but she always found time to help me with my math homework, and she always cooked the greatest meals, and taught me to cook too. She always slipped me some extra money whenever I wanted to go shopping – and she bought me a sewing machine when the things I could find weren’t enough. And she never missed a PFLAG meeting in the five years since I officially came out. Well…” Kurt said, catching himself as his voice cracked a little, and a few tears escaped, “…she never missed until… you know. But that wasn’t her fault.”

“Wow,” Finn said again, looking thoughtful. “It sounds like she’d do anything for you.” He paused, and Kurt almost answered him in the affirmative, when he suddenly spoke again. “Do you think that’s why she stole all of that money?”

“I… I… I don’t know,” Kurt said, scrubbing the tears from his cheeks. “I kind of don’t think she did steal the money. My friend Sandy and her family, their kind of keeping track of the trial and everything for me. Well, the trial hasn’t started yet, but they told me she’s pleading innocent. Well, to the, the embezzlement charge, at least. I guess it would be pretty hard to plead innocent to the bail jumping, and the non-custodial kidnapping.”

“Wow,” Finn said once more. “So how much time is she going to have to spend in jail?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Kurt said. He closed his eyes tightly and willed the tears away, wishing that he’d never started this conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Finn said. “Hey – hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up like that. Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Finn,” Kurt finally said. “Thank you for… at least letting me talk about her. I’m sorry for reacting this way.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Finn said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I would hate it if my mom had to go through something like all of this, so I guess I understand.”

“It’s fine,” Kurt said again. He quietly gathered his things and headed to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

The next day after school, Burt took the two of them to the tux place, to choose their tuxes. Burt seemed relaxed and joked around with his friend in front, and didn’t seemed too concerned with what Kurt would pick out. But unfortunately, as he suspected, there wasn’t anything Burt would consider controversial at all there; nothing interesting. Nothing the least bit fashionable. So he chose the best he could, picking a dark, clean cut one. Finn looked like he just chose one at random – though that thought wasn’t really fair to Finn, as he probably had way less to choose from in his size range.

After they finished, and got into the car, Burt paused, and turned to them instead of turning the ignition on. “Do you guys mind if we stop somewhere else before going home?” He asked. 

“That’s fine,” Finn said, and Kurt shrugged.

“I was talking to Carole last night, and we decided that… well, it looks like even though we’re hopefully going to be deciding on a new home soon, there’s still enough extra money in the budget to buy you guys new phones.”

Kurt looked over at him, his eyebrow raised.

“We talked. And we decided that – smartphones? We decided that both of you should probably get smartphones. They are at least a couple hundred dollars each, and apparently our monthly phone bill is going to go way up, but neither of you have your own personal computers right now – Kurt, remind me, I’ll show you around the family computer when we have time later this week – but, um, these phones are supposed to be really good at helping people keep in touch and communicate better. And, we figured you both deserve that.” 

Finn looked thrilled, Kurt could see from the corner of his eye. He could also see his father darting his gaze to him, an almost hopeful look on his face. “Is there a catch?” Kurt asked. “You’re not going to limit it in any way, or pull the plug on it if I do something you don’t like, right?”

“Well,” his father said, “I am paying for it. I guess we’ll have to have a talk about something like that if you start failing your classes, or making really bad decisions or something like that. But you’ve got to believe me, I’m not plotting anything, Kurt,” he continued, and he was looking straight on at Kurt now. “I meant what I said last night. I just… I want to do right by you. And I was told that this is going to help. And I know you want it. So what do you say we head over to the Verizon store in the mall, and see what they have?”

“All right!” Finn said happily. “I want one that can play Angry Birds! Artie says that’s the best to play when it gets too boring in his Trig class.”

“Finn!” Kurt hissed, askance.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Burt said, amused, and finally started the car.

* * *

They weren’t even out of the mall and into the car, when Kurt clicked and logged into his phone’s pre-installed facebook app. It was amazing, and he flitted through the screens, enjoying actually being able to see pictures, see people’s faces. It was even a joy to read the stupid status updates, and comments that people who saw each other almost every day made to each other. He noticed that he had a lot of unread messages, and he had almost touched his icon to go to them, when he noticed the updates that were currently on the bottom of his screen:

 **Adrian Park**  
Picked up our suits – we’re gonna rock it Saturday night!! – with **Michael Mathley**

 **Michael Mathley**  
were goin 2 make everyone jealous cant wait!

 **Michael Mathley**  
looking forward to PROM, bt really looking forward to AFTERPARTY!!!

 **Ashley Ferrier**  
:DDDDD

 **Adrian Park**  
So so glad I don’t have a curfew!

And that just… no. No.

Kurt clicked into Adrian’s profile before he could stop and think. It proclaimed him “Single,” and Kurt felt none of the relief he would have expected.

His profile had to still say that he was in a relationship; he hadn’t been around to change it. It made him feel suddenly pathetic, though, and he wished that he had used some of his minutes to tell Sandy his password and have her fix it.

He fixed it now, and spent the remaining time scrolling through his messages and deleting them.

As soon as he got home, he turned to Finn. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s your room too, I just, I need to make some phone calls, and I really need–”

“It’s okay,” Finn told him. “I think I’m going to go over to Quinn’s, see if she can help me figure this thing out.”

“Thank you, seriously,” Kurt said. He took Finn’s suit, and brought it downstairs along with his, hanging them up carefully in his closet before calling Sandy.

“Hey, it’s Kurt,” he said as soon as she picked up. “New number – new phone actually.”

“I thought it might be you,” she said cheerfully. “I recognized the area code. New phone?”

“Yeah. They got me a smartphone actually – unlimited minutes.”

“That’s great,” she enthused. “Except… you don’t sound very happy? Certainly not unlimited minute happy. What was the catch?”

“No catch,” he said. “At least I don’t think so. He got one for Finn, too. He said he was going to try and be less of a jerk. I hope he doesn’t change his mind, I don’t know what to think at this point. But in the meantime, I figure I’ll make use of it. I… I went on facebook already.”

“Kurt, what is it? Was it just too depressing, seeing everyone chatting like normal?”

“I saw Adrian chatting with _Michael Mathley_ ,” he said. “Apparently they’re going to prom together?”

“Ooooh,” she said. “Baby, that’s nothing. They’re just going as friends. Adrian wasn’t going to go at all, but Mikey asked him to go hang, so he wouldn’t have to go alone. They’re not dating or anything.”

“Oh,” he said, and he didn’t feel any better. “Well, I should hope not.”

“Mikey’s not that bad,” she said, laughing a little. “I get that it must hurt, though… you and Adrian didn’t really get any closure. It sucks.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. 

They only talked for a few minutes after that, in spite of the unlimited time. He just couldn’t concentrate, and she seemed to at least understand.

He didn’t think she would lie to him, about whether or not Adrian and Mathley were dating, but she might not _know_. And even if they were just going as friends, he knew Mathley would probably make a move. And that just…

It sucked.

He was the one who broke up with Adrian. He wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t spiteful. He knew Adrian was going to date again and he knew, objectively, that it was a good thing. He wanted him to be happy. He loved him. 

Kurt was the one stuck in the Midwest, where he was the only out student at his school. Adrian still had the chance to be happy.

But still. Michael Mathley?

After staring at his phone for a few quiet minutes, Kurt gave into it, and dialed Adrian’s familiar number. It rang and rang, and Kurt was wondering whether to leave a rambling, embarrassing message, or just hang up, when he answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” he said quietly. “It’s me.”

“Kurt! Oh god, how are you?” he sounded honestly concerned, and Kurt’s stomach tightened.

“I’m fine,” he said automatically. “I’m doing okay.”

“Good,” Adrian said, and there was an awkward pause.

“I – I just wanted to call and say that I’m sorry… I know it wasn’t either of our faults, but I’m sorry I ended it that way. I really do want you, I just want you to be able to find someone else, date, be happy.” Kurt closed his eyes tight and willed it to be true, willed himself to feel it.

“Kurt…”

“Have fun at the prom,” Kurt said, and he hung up the phone quickly. It kind of made him feel like an ass – he did know Adrian and Michael were probably just going as friends – but he still felt like he needed to say it. Because it didn’t matter if Adrian started dating someone now, or months from now – it was going to happen and he needed to deal. He was the one who had decided to break up – he still knew it was for the best, for Adrian – and he had to let him go.

* * *

Things were starting to get tense in glee.

Finn and Quinn were still running for Prom King and Queen, but Puck and Lauren were running too, and so was Santana.

Rachel was going to the prom with “a friend,” according to her, or “the jerkiest boy in the world,” according to Finn. Based on the things Finn told him, Jesse St. James didn’t sound very nice at all, but Rachel was adamant.

Of course, Mike was going with Tina, and Brittany was going with Artie, and that just left him and Mercedes. She had been sad about it all week. Kurt considered asking her to go with him as friends, but between Adrian and Michael, and the sour look on her face as she watched the happy couples around them at lunch, he didn’t think that would actually help either of them. 

They spent a lot of time coming up with and practicing songs for prom that week, and practically no time thinking about Nationals. Kurt ended up being assigned back-up parts in two of the numbers. He didn’t mind not having a lead; he wasn’t sure how much this crowd would get behind him up there, singing in the spotlight. Nationals were just a few weeks away anyway, and the field was still wide-open for that.

* * *

“Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?” his father asked him on Thursday. “It’s up to you, Carole’s making pasta tonight, if we stay in. But I figured, if you want to go out, I can take you. You can choose the place.”

“All right,” Kurt told him, after a minute’s consideration. “I have been looking at some of the city guides and restaurant reviews on my phone. There’s an Indian place that isn’t too far from here, I think I might want to try. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure,” Burt said. “Whatever you want.”

Kurt wasn’t completely sold on the idea of going out with his dad – he wasn’t sure exactly where they stood, and if his apparent change of heart was going to last, or going to make his life any better, beyond the phone. But the phone was nice, his dad seemed sincere, he wasn’t in the mood for a carb-heavy supper, and this dinner might be a good opportunity to get a better idea of what was going on.

His father stuck to the routine topics of conversation at the beginning- how were things at school, how were things in glee, you like your new phone, right? Kurt thanked him for it again, and they lapsed into the awkward silence that had become their norm. After the food arrived, Burt picked at it at first but then dug in with more gusto and seemed to enjoy it. 

“I wanted to talk,” his father finally said, putting down his fork next to his mostly empty plate.

“Ok,” Kurt replied. “I figured.” He put his own fork down next to his half-eaten plate, and waited while Burt seemed to struggle to collect his thoughts.

“One of the things I kinda got hammered on at the PFLAG meeting was… they told me that your ‘self-expression’ was really important. That’s what they said, your ‘self-expression,’ but what they meant was –”

“My clothes.”

“Yeah, that you being able to choose your own clothes is important. More important than I thought. More important than my fear that other people might use those clothes as an excuse to hurt you. Because that’s all it was Kurt, I wasn’t-”

“Self-expression goes way beyond clothes,” Kurt said, cutting his father off. He really wasn’t interested in his justifications or equivocations. “But I’m not surprised it got brought up somehow. Fashion has been an important part of my life for a long time, almost as long as I can remember.” He looked Burt directly in the eyes. “You really hurt me. And it wasn’t just by keeping me from wearing what I wanted. You _destroyed_ my stuff.”

“I know,” his father said. “And I’m sorry about that. I just got so mad, so frustrated.”

“And what are you going to do the next time you get mad?”

“Oh, c’mon Kurt – nothing like that again, I promise. I’m sorry, okay? I was wrong. I don’t ever want to see people do things like that to you – for god’s sake, they threw pee on you – but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you like that. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t my fault?” Kurt repeated. “Even though I wore fashionable and fabulous clothes? Even though I go around daring to not hide my sexuality?”

“Of course, yes,” his father confirmed, looking at him pleadingly. “It’s their fault, it’s not your fault. And I should have never tried to… limit your… self-expression. It hurt you, I know it did. And I’m sorry. I want to make it up to you, at least a little bit.” He pulled a small plastic card out of his front pocket, and laid it on the table between them. “It’s only for a hundred dollars,” he said, as Kurt noted the number and the Visa logo on it. “I know you probably want more, but with the new phones, and, like I said, a new house on the horizon… I figured this would be a good start.”

“So… this is to buy anything I want with?”

“Yeah, well, I figure you’d want new clothes,” Burt said. “We even – I’m giving this to you as a gift card instead of taking you somewhere, because we figured – you’re making more friends now, maybe you want to go to the mall with them or something, you know, get some stuff without me or Carole there breathing down your neck.”

Kurt looked at him skeptically. “You mean you’re giving me permission to go off and buy whatever clothes I want with this? And you’re not going to object to anything I bring back?”

“Yeah,” Burt said earnestly.

“Even if I come back with a corset?”

“Ev… wait, a _corset_? That’s… come on, Kurt, don’t be ridiculous. I’m trying to be nice here.”

“I’m not kidding,” Kurt said firmly. “I owned one, before. It was black and silver, and I looked fantastic in it. I had to leave it behind when I moved here. I had to leave most of my things behind.”

“You… you would really come back with a corset.” 

“Well, no,” Kurt said. “Not anytime soon – a good one would cost so much, I basically wouldn’t have enough money left over to buy much of anything else. Unfortunately, that probably goes for any of the signature pieces I might want to go after.”

“I’m doing the best I can here, Kurt,” Burt said, looking a little lost, and a lot confused. “And… yes, I stand by what I said. You can get whatever clothes you want with that money. I won’t… object. Or throw them out. Even if they’re girl’s clothes. That you probably shouldn’t wear. I won’t… stop you.”

“Thank you.”

“And we will get you more money, little by little. I know you have a lot to replace.”

“I can’t just replace them,” Kurt told him.

“Well, we’ll do what we can, little by little, like I said,” Burt replied.

“No, you still don’t get it,” Kurt said, frustrated. “Throwing out my clothes, that wasn’t just about limiting my self-expression. I mean, you did, and it sucked. It still sucks. It’s going to suck for a while. But worse than that – you destroyed my stuff. I had a life, I had a whole house, I had a lot of things in Seattle, and one day, they pull me out of class, tell me I’m leaving everyone and everything I know. I got to take four bags with me, dad, that’s it. I had to leave everything else behind, but I got to take four bags, and I chose everything in every one of them so carefully. And they weren’t just clothes. They were – they were the only things I had left.”

“I’m sorry,” Burt told him. “I really am. If I could – I can’t do anything now Kurt, I can’t do anything but apologize, and promise to do better.” Kurt still wasn’t sure how much his promises were worth, but he noted with some surprise that Burt was actually tearing up. He had managed to get his father to listen, even if it was just for now. “And I promise, Kurt. I’ll respect your space, I’ll respect your stuff, I’ll do better. I’ll listen to you, I’ll support you, I promise. I promise.”

* * *

Saturday came, and Kurt felt vaguely guilty about taking over the shared basement bathroom for the majority of the afternoon – it was Finn who was going for Prom King, after all, and Finn needed a chance to look his best as well.

Finn, for his part, didn’t seem to mind Kurt’s selfishness and didn’t even knock or tell him to hurry up. Both of them ended up ready with plenty of time, and Kurt eventually found himself in Finn’s car, going with him to pick up his date. They weren’t really happy about having to carpool, but Burt and Carole thought it was a fantastic idea. Kurt was left standing awkwardly to the side while Quinn’s mother cooed at Finn and Quinn and took way more pictures than she could possibly need.

The ride to the prom seemed interminable, since Quinn felt the need to repeatedly reassure the car that she and Finn had the votes to win. But it was still pretty early when they arrived. Some of the other members of the New Directions were hanging around the stage area, and Kurt headed over to compliment the girls on their dresses.

Soon, more and more people arrived, and the prom kicked off. As the New Directions began to sing and everyone around him began to dance, Kurt started to feel some boredom creeping in. He had only ended up with one part to sing, in one song. 

His club mates were amazing, performing up there, but he had already heard all of the songs several times in rehearsal, and it wasn’t like he was out there dancing to them – he had no one to dance with and was pretty much sticking to the back of the room. Even scrutinizing chosen outfits and trying to do a running commentary in his head wasn’t really satisfying, because no one was actually wearing anything all that interesting.

So when Rachel went up to sing Jar of Hears, he made his way over to Mercedes, who was sitting at a table alone. After all, he didn’t want to dance by himself and he didn’t have a boyfriend or date, but he figured he didn’t need to let that stop him from dancing at all. 

“Excuse me,” he said, smiling his most charming smile, and bowing with a flourish. “May I just say, you look absolutely stunning tonight. Would you do me the pleasure of allowing me this dance?”

Mercedes had been looking bored, as well, before he came over. Kurt had figured that she might want the distraction as much as he did. But now, she just looked bitter.

“Sorry,” she said. “Nothing against you, Kurt, but I really don’t feel like it.” And now she just looked sad, and Kurt felt horrible. He managed to keep some sort of smile on his face as he nodded his understanding and escaped to the back again. He tried to just let the music wash over him. He tried not to let himself imagine Adrian coming, taking him by the hand, leading him out to the dance floor and showing everyone else how it was done. But he couldn’t help himself.

He understood why Mercedes had turned him down. It just wasn’t the same.

Finally, it was time for I Gotta Feeling, the group number he had a part in. He was having fun, and the crowd seemed into it, though they had seemed into all of the numbers so far that night. But still, it was definitely the highlight of his night, so far. He wished he would have spoken up, and tried to get more parts in other songs, but the week had been crazy, and everything had been thrown together so quickly. 

When they were still mid-way through the song, there was a commotion out on the dance floor. Kurt peeked out, while still concentrating on singing and keeping time, and saw Finn and some other boy being pulled apart by an angry looking teacher.

By the time the song finished, and Kurt made his way down into the crowd, Finn was nowhere to be seen, and Quinn was standing in the back, fuming.

“What happened?” Kurt asked her.

“Finn decided to humiliate me,” she told him angrily.

“What?”

“He picked a fight with Rachel’s date, and they both got kicked out.” 

“But he’s our ride home,” Kurt said with dismay.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Quinn said. “I still have to be crowned Prom Queen! I can’t believe he did this to me.”

“Maybe he hasn’t left yet,” Kurt said mostly to himself, because Quinn had stopped paying attention and was now glaring at the rest of the prom-goers as though they were all her mixed-up boyfriend. He left her to her seething and hurried out, through the halls and to the parking lot, figuring that it had only been a few minutes since Finn had left. He honestly would prefer to leave early if he could – now that his one number was over there was no other reason for him to be here.

But as he went outside, he saw no sign of the other boy. Sighing, he headed back inside, and started trudging towards the gymnasium.

“Hey, ladyboy!”

Kurt tried to will his feet to keep going forward, but the voice was too close behind him, and he stumbled to a stop. Turning around, he saw Azimio standing there wearing a ridiculous suit, and a mean look on his face. One of his burly friends was next to him, a blond with an equally ugly look on his face.

“You and I need to talk. We’ve got some unfinished business between us,” Azimio said, and Kurt had time to be grateful that it at least wasn’t Karofsky before he was being grabbed and manhandled into the boy’s bathroom further down the hall.

“Let go of me!” Kurt said loudly, but it was swallowed up by the fast song Brittany was singing for her turn in the spotlight.

“You have a lot to make up for,” Azimio told him, once they finished dragging him into the room, and pushing him into one of the sinks. “You got my boy Karofsky expelled.”

 

“He deserved it,” Kurt said, mustering up all of the courage he could spare. “He crossed the line, you know he crossed the line! He wouldn’t stop – I was just protecting myself!”

“Oh yeah,” Azimio asked, and he got close – too close. “And how long until you decide you just need to ‘protect yourself’ against me?”

“It depends what you’re going to do to me,” Kurt said.

“It doesn’t matter!” Azimio yelled in his face. “I should be able to do anything I want! I’m the big man at this school. It’s my job to put people in line, and it’s your job to take what I dish out. Going to your daddy? That’s- I’d say that’s a sissy move, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? So I ask you again – how long until you take the bitch road out, and try and mess up my future? Try and send me to some ‘alternate’ school that doesn’t even have a football team? Cut me off from all of my friends? Hell, I hear Dave’s parents are even sending him to a head-shrink – you think that’s funny? You think that’s fair?”

Kurt was braced for a hit, a shove, a kick, anything- but Azimio and his friend just stood there and held him, looking at him intently, looking as though they expected him to actually answer. Kurt took a couple of breaths and tried to gather his panicked thoughts. “I meant what I said,” he finally answered. “Karofsky was way out of line. You don’t even know – but… I don’t have any interest in getting you expelled, okay? Just leave me alone. I just want you to leave me alone. You don’t hurt me, and I won’t have anything to tell about you.”

Azimio’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I like that deal, Hummel. Like I said before, I’m the big man around here. I should be able to push around whoever I damn well please to push around.” He gave Kurt a light push into the sink, as if to prove that fact.

“Fine, you’re bigger than me,” Kurt said desperately. “You don’t have to prove it, just –”

Suddenly from behind Azimio, the bathroom door swung open. Sam came in first, the slight frown on his face turning angry as he spied Kurt and his two tormentors. “They’re in here,” he called, and Puck and Lauren strode in as well. 

“Eww,” said Lauren. “My guesses were right; the boys room really is filled with unspeakably gross slime.”

“Let him go,” Puck said, striding up to Azimio, but stopping short in front of him. “You are _so_ lucky I’m still on probation. But maybe I should make an exception for you.”

“Oh please,” Azimio said. “You’re neutered like Paris Hilton’s favorite dog. You’re not going to do anything to me.”

“But I might,” Lauren said. “I enjoy bringing the pain, and if it’s just the two of you against me, I like my odds.”

“You’re a joke,” Azimio’s friend spat scornfully. “You think we’re afraid of you?”

Sam stepped up to them. “Just let him go,” he said. “You don’t want to start a big fight in the middle of prom – they already kicked out Finn for that. You want to be kicked out too? I’m sure your dates would love that.”

Azimio nodded to his friend, and Kurt felt himself being released.

“Hey, we don’t want trouble,” Azimio said. “Your fruity friend here’s the one who likes to start things.” For a few seconds, Kurt was worried that there was still going to be a fight; the two boys practically pushed their way out of the restroom, and no one seemed to be giving an inch. But finally, they were gone.

“Assholes,” Lauren muttered.

“Hey,” Puck said, “are you okay? Do we have to chase them out there and fuck their shit up? Because I will. He compared me to a _dog_.”

“And not just any dog,” Lauren said. “One of those little yippy things.”

“I’m okay,” Kurt said, as Puck growled. “I’m sorry guys. I guess, with prom and all, I forgot I was still at McKinley, and thus not allowed to go anywhere by myself.”

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m pretty sure this is Finn’s fault,” Lauren said. “What a dumbass.”

“Let’s just go back,” Kurt said.

“Yeah,” Lauren said. “Pretty sure they’re going to announce Prom Queen soon, and I am not going to miss the part where Figgins puts a crown on my head, and everyone falls down at my feet.”

“Right,” Kurt said.

Lauren was right – by the time they got back to the dance floor, there was just a song and a half until the principal signaled them to clear the stage, and came up clutching a couple of envelopes. He called for the candidates to come up on stage, and Kurt watched as Quinn, Santana, Lauren, and Puck all marched up with everyone else.

“Drum roll please… This year’s junior Prom King is…” Figgins scrunched his eyes at the piece of paper in front of him, and gave an extra long pause before continuing. “…Finn Hudson.”

Kurt heard a few snickers behind him. “Well,” Figgins said, noticeably disconcerted, “Mr. Hudson is unfortunately unable to be here, and fulfill his duties. Let that be a lesson to you all, that fighting never wins you anything. Now let us move on, and crown the Prom Queen.” 

Everyone up there was still standing stiffly and awkwardly. Figgins called for another drum roll, and finally continued. “This year’s junior Prom Queen,” he said, “is… Quinn Fabray.” 

This time there was a scattering of applause. Kurt tried to join in and clap for her, but no one else around him did.

Quinn came up to the microphone with a wide, fixed smile on her face. “Thank you so much,” she said with enthusiasm, accepting the scepter, and allowing the crown to be placed on her head. “I promise to be a worthy queen, and to always represent our school with beauty and grace.”

“Thank you, Ms. Fabray,” Figgins said. “And now, according to tradition… well…”

Santana and Mercedes stepped forward uncertainly, and Kurt remembered with a jolt that they were supposed to sing Dancing Queen after the coronation, and the new king and queen were supposed to dance to it. It looked like Quinn was realizing that too, and it seemed that her smile became even wider and more brittle, as she turned to Figgins to see what he would do.

“…our new 2011 Prom Queen is going to have her first dance,” he finally said.

Mercedes and Santana stepped up to the microphones, and Quinn stepped down to the crowd. She kept her chin up, and her smile in place, and Kurt had the impression that she was about two seconds away from crying. But as she took her last step down, Kurt saw Mike heading towards her, and he held out his hand to her as the music started. Her face fell a little, but only because it was probably impossible for a face to hold a smile that wide for too long, and she reached out and took him by the hand. They moved smoothly together as Santana and Mercedes began to sing. Kurt watched them until they became obscured by the crowd, then saw Tina heading over to him.

“Hey,” she said with a smile. “My boyfriend’s a little busy right now. You want to dance?”

“I’d love to,” he told her, and in spite of everything, he really did mean it. They danced, moving and swaying between the crowd, finding their way over to Lauren and Puck and Mike and Quinn and Brittany and Artie. They laughed and batted the balloons around after they dropped, and they spun each other around. It was fun. It was freeing, really. Because it had been a crappy night, but Kurt had friends, and he had music, and it almost seemed enough.

* * *

Kurt ended up getting his picture taken by the official photographer at the prom, though he regretted it when he picked it up at school a few days later. He was smiling in it; he had been honestly happy in that moment, though back in the daily grind of real life and high school it seemed more like a moment of temporary insanity.

There was nothing he could do with the picture – there was no way a prom picture of yourself, alone, could be anything other than sad and pathetic. It made it burn even more, watching other prom pictures flood his facebook wall. He tried to like and comment on as many of his friends’ posts as he could stand; he had been shut out from everything for long enough, and he wanted to join in, to stay a part of everyone’s lives. But it wasn’t easy, even if all of Adrian and Mikey’s pictures were pretty obviously platonic.

Kurt was a little worried, on Monday, about how Azimio and his friend would react the next time he saw them, but the rest of the glee club kept up their escort, and all he got were some dirty looks.

On Wednesday, Kurt, Tina, Brittany, and Santana went to a few shops after school to spend Kurt’s hundred dollars. As he predicted, it went quickly – most on a new jacket, and then the rest on a pair of fitted gray pants, which were chosen by a very narrow margin over some graphic tees that he had also been eying. Walking past the shoe section had been torture, but Kurt had decided in advance to not even bother; $100 wasn’t going to touch what he needed from there.

Tina drove him back to the house just before suppertime. But when he came in, instead of seeing Carole put the finishing touches on the ravioli she claimed she was going to make for tonight, he saw her and his father sitting at the kitchen table talking, Burt rubbing at his forehead as though he was stressed. They both turned to look at him as soon as they heard him, and his father had a look on his face as serious as Kurt had ever seen.

Kurt wondered where Finn was, wondered if someone had vandalized the garage, wondered if there had been another phone call, this one worse, more threatening than the last.

“I got a phone call today,” Burt began, and Kurt stiffened, waiting for it. “It was from your mother’s lawyer. She… there’s been some developments in the case.”

“My mother’s okay, right?” Kurt immediately asked. “She’s okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Burt said. “The lawyer, she said that they’re dropping some of the charges against your mother.”

“What do you mean, ‘some of the charges’?”

“Everything,” his father said, looking like he didn’t believe it. “Everything except the… well, the kidnapping, jumping bail, failure to appear. She… I mean, we both know she did those things, she just –”

“She wasn’t a criminal until they arrested her,” Kurt said, and he _knew_ it, he knew his mother wasn’t stupid, wasn’t some bad guy that just liked to steal money.

“They were gathering the evidence together for the trial, and… the lawyer didn’t really go into much detail, I don’t know if it was some CSI stuff that they can do now that they couldn’t have back then – or if she had just left before they could figure it out – but they found out it was one of her co-workers. He set her up.”

“Are they going to arrest him?”

“No,” Burt said. “He’s long gone. He…” Burt trailed off, and shot a look to Carole that Kurt couldn’t interpret. “He disappeared before she did. We just never put it together.”

“But what does this mean?” Kurt asked him plaintively. “Is there any way… I mean, she didn’t actually do anything _wrong_.”

“She did,” Burt insisted, though for the first time when talking about his mother, Burt’s face looked pained, rather than angry. “She still kidnapped you. She still took you away.”

Kurt shook his head.

“She still ran, rather than going to trial. That still makes her a criminal. Kurt, she’s still going to have to serve some time in jail.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know. Not as much as before, but – I don’t know.”

Kurt met his eyes, and tried to sound as grown up and reasonable as possible. Tried not to let his voice break. “If you made a plea on her behalf, talked to the judge, you’d probably be able to reduce it.”

Burt broke eye contact with him, and stared down at the table, clenching his jaw. Kurt could see the ‘ _and why should I do that_ ’ in his expression, but at least he didn’t say it out loud. Finally, after a minute, he answered. “It’s complicated, Kurt. And no matter what happens, you can’t go back to Seattle. She’s going to be in prison at least, _at least_ until you’ve graduated, and have gone off to wherever you’ll go to college. This doesn’t, it doesn’t really change anything. It’s just, she’ll get out a little sooner now.”

“It changes everything,” Kurt whispered. “Please. Please, can I go see her?”

Burt cleared his throat. “Maybe.”

“Dad. Please.”

“I know,” Burt said. “Listen, I’m going to see her tomorrow, okay? And then, probably, I’ll take you after school on Friday. Probably. I just… I need to talk to her first.”

* * *

_When he and Carole went to the PFLAG meeting, the first person he met was a man named Rick, who had a pick-up truck, ripped jeans, and a Steelers cap. They parked their car next to his, just as he was getting out, and Burt breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that they were headed to the same meeting room. He made Burt feel a bit over-dressed – Carole had insisted on dressing up a little bit for this first meeting – but it also made Burt feel a million times better, to see someone like him there, someone who was probably going through the same thing. This guy probably had a son who liked shopping instead of football too, maybe also wondered how that kid could be related to him. Burt chose a seat next to him, when they got to the room, and saw the loose circle of metal folding chairs set up, and he immediately started up a conversation about sports, which quickly turned into a conversation about pick-up trucks when Burt identified himself as a mechanic. Carole left to get them some of the refreshments – looked like fruit and cheese, mostly, and Burt really was starting to relax, when he realized that Rick was saying: “And my fiancé, Bryan, he says he won’t even ride in one as a passenger…” And then Rick was trailing off, probably because Burt had just frozen, and because he probably had the most awkward expression on his face._

_Burt tried to relax again, and smile good-naturedly, but it was hard, and why did everything have to be so hard? “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t realize you were gay. I thought, you know, I thought this was for, you know, family members, and friends dealing with… but, you know, I didn’t know –”_

_“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Rick told him, but his voice, his eyes, were different now. Closed off and guarded in a way he’d seen all too often from Kurt. “Yes, I’m gay. And I like to come to these meetings. Sometimes I answer some questions, sometimes I just find out what sort of projects the group’s working at, sometimes I just come for the cheese.” Burt noticed that other people were looking over at him now, and he slumped down in his seat a little. “So, Burt,” Rick continued, as Carole sat down next to him again, “do you have any questions? What brings you here to us tonight?”_

* * *

“I’m here to see Elizabeth Adams,” Burt told the guard at the front counter. “I should have an appointment – Burt Hummel?”

Burt wasn’t exactly sure how exactly this would work – he was half imagining that he would be talking to Liz on a telephone through plexiglass, but he was soon led to what looked like a cafeteria, full of tables with different people talking. He saw Liz there, sitting at one of the tables with her hair in a short, ugly style. She looked washed out from her prison uniform, and a hundred years older than when he had seen her last time. The guard who was escorting him walked him right up to the seat across from her at the table and then stepped away as soon as he sat down.

“How is he?” she asked him, before he had even finished putting his butt in the chair. “Burt – how is he?”

He honestly didn’t know how to answer her. “It’s been hard.”

She looked like she wanted to cry. “Is he okay?”

 _No_ , he wanted to tell her. _No, he isn’t. He’s getting harassed, he misses all of his friends, he misses_ you _. And I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me._

“He’s had some trouble at school,” he finally managed to say, “but I think things are calmed down now. I’m trying my best at home. It hasn’t been easy.” 

He figured it wouldn’t do anyone any good to lay it out any more bluntly than that. After all, she knew Lima. She knew him. It had been sixteen years, but… she knew him. 

He hadn’t really changed, in sixteen years.

“No,” she told him with a measured look. “I don’t suppose it would be.”

And yet, and yet, this was the woman who had taken his son away. As much as he had screwed up with Kurt over the past couple of months – and he was starting to realize he'd screwed up a lot – and as much as the idea that she really hadn’t stolen that money had thrown him, she had still set herself up as his enemy. She had still kidnapped his baby, right out of what once had been their home. He couldn’t give her the ammunition to let her think that she’d made the right decision.

“He’s – physically, he’s fine,” he said. “And he’s making friends at school, he joined a singing group, and he seems to be getting along with his step-family – his stepmother, and he has a stepbrother that’s his same age. They share a room. They seem to get along all right.”

“Oh, god. He has to share a room? He must hate that.”

“He hasn’t really complained, but, both of the boys know that we’re looking for another house, a bigger one, so that everyone’ll have their own space.”

He tried to inject his voice with confidence, but she punctured that by staring at him pointedly, and asking, “and how is he getting along with you?”

“He doesn’t like me very much,” Burt admitted. “He didn’t like me from the beginning. Though I hear that has some to do with you telling lies about me, before he even had the chance to meet him.”

That actually seemed to deflate her a little, to his surprise. She didn’t meet his eyes as she muttered, “I told him about you, yes, but I never told him any lies.” Then, a bit more angrily, she said, “I might have told him how homophobic you were in high school. Please, please tell me you’ve changed since then. Tell me you welcomed him with open arms, that you threw him a pride parade as soon as you found out he was gay.”

It was Burt’s turn to avoid her eyes. “I’m doing the best I can,” he insisted. "Carole – my new wife and I, we went to a PFLAG meeting this past week. We’re trying to learn more. We’re trying to be good parents. We _are_ good parents, it’s just hard. We live in Lima, not Seattle. You know things are different here.”

He finally met her eyes again, and she looked at him long and hard. “I know there are things you’re not telling me,” she finally said. "But I’m glad you’re going to the PFLAG meetings.”

“I am trying,” he said. It burned his throat to realize that he was actually craving her approval, at least a little bit. “PFLAG, they only meet once a month, but they gave me this Q&A booklet, so I could understand some of the things he’s been going through a little better. I’ve already finished it.”

She nodded. “I am glad,” she said. “I was half afraid that you were coming here to rant at me about raising him gay, or something crazy like that.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, I don’t know if it’s the way you raised him, or how he just is, but, he’s incredibly strong. I don’t think I really realized, or, appreciated that at first. He’s just, he’s strong.”

“He’s special,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Yeah, he is.”

They were quiet for a few minutes. Finally, she broke the silence. “I told you that I didn’t steal that money,” she said, sounding quietly accusatory.

“You didn’t have an affair with Mark either, did you?” he asked, equally as quiet, equally as grave.

“I didn’t,” she said, and he could hear the anger building in her voice, “he set me up all the way.”

“I’m sorry I believed it,” he told her, but she brushed him off and talked over him.

“You did believe it, though. I swore that I didn’t know where the messages or gifts were coming from, but you just – you let it break us. And the next thing I know I’m alone, and being accused of some crime I didn’t commit, and you – you’re using this clusterfuck to take my baby away, to convince some judge that I shouldn’t even see him anymore.”

“You were going to jail. I just…”

“You thought I was guilty!”

“The cops had evidence on you!” he said, and felt his own anger grow in the face of her rage. “What was I supposed to think? Mark played the situation perfectly, and I fell for it, yes. You were so different after Kurt was born, and you were spending more and more time at work, even before those messages started showing up… I was worried, I was starting to feel like I didn’t know you anymore. When I started to suspect you were having an affair – it just made a sick sort of sense. I was wrong. I’m sorry. But it seemed like you were gone, first from my life, and then off to jail… I wasn’t trying to take him from you. I thought you were going to jail, I thought it was just going to be him and me. But then you – you _actually_ took him away from me. And unlike you, I had no chance of visits, no updates on how he was – he could have been dead for all I knew!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” she told him. She was obviously agitated, and they both noticed as one of the guards took a step towards them, watching them closely. “I didn’t have a choice,” she repeated, softly but firmly. “They were going to lock me up. I wasn’t going to see him anymore. I couldn’t let that happen – he was my _baby_. He was my baby, and he needed me.”

“He was my baby, too. You had no right – you had no right to take him away, to keep him from me.”

“I had every right! I’m his _mother_!”

Burt sat back and breathed deeply, trying to get his anger under control. This wasn’t helping anything, and it definitely wasn’t helping him decide whether or not to let Kurt visit her tomorrow. Though he knew, not so deep down, that he had to.

“In the end, we both lost out,” he finally told her. “You had to go on the run for all that time, and you have to go to jail now – but I’m the one who lost my son for 16 years, who got a stranger dropped on my doorstep. Liz – I love him, I’ve always loved him, from the moment I laid eyes on him. You can’t deny that.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t. Burt – I’m not going to say I’m sorry. But I’m not going to say that I didn’t feel guilty. I did. Almost every day.”

They sat there in silence for another minute, until he shook off his hesitation. “I’m going to let Kurt visit tomorrow,” he said. “I know – he’s been missing you a lot.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

* * *

Burt had returned home subdued on Thursday. He’d assured Kurt that his mother was fine, and that he would in fact let him visit the next day.

Kurt had trouble falling asleep that night. And it annoyed him; he really did want to go to sleep right away, wanted the minutes and hours that needed to pass before he could see his mom again to pass as quickly as they could. But he couldn’t stop thinking. About her, about how she was doing, and what it must have been like to spend time in prison. And about himself, and what he would say to her. 

He did have a bit of a dilemma – his mother had always been his best sort of comfort. She had treated skinned knees with kisses and band-aids when he was younger, she had weathered boy problems right along with him with fruit smoothies and listening ears, and the few times homophobia had impacted his life before, she had always known just what to say to make him feel better, to make him feel like he could face the world again.

But what was happening to him now, what had happened in the past few months, was a world apart from anything he had ever faced before. And he knew his mother, and he knew that to unload on her, while she was trapped in prison would be beyond selfish. She knew that Burt was a dick, and she had to know that he was having a hard time. He didn’t need to give her specifics, or let her know how much it really had affected him and had hurt him. He had to be okay, for her, because she was going through so much more than he was right now, and he didn’t need to add to that, no matter how appealing laying his burdens down, and accepting her comfort would be.

He finally fell asleep sometime around two.

The next day, time wasn’t passing any faster, and he had the unpleasant task of having to keep awake through classes that seemed extra boring and pointless.

Finally, the last bell rang. Burt was waiting for him outside, like he promised. He drove him to the prison silently, though once or twice he started to say something, and stopped himself.

The prison looked gray and ugly, and there seemed to be miles of metal fencing all about. When they entered the main building, Burt walked up to a young, bored-looking man at the front counter.

“We’re here to see Elizabeth Adams,” he said. “This is Kurt Hummel, her son. He should have an appointment.”

It seemed to take forever; that guard had to call another guard, and they had to talk, and look at papers, and it seemed for a good five minutes straight that no one was doing anything but standing there. But finally, he was leaving his father behind, following a different guard through mazes of drab, beige walls. 

And finally, finally they reached a large room that could’ve had a dozen other people in it, or a hundred, Kurt didn’t know – he only had eyes for his mother. She stood up where she was, and she didn’t move forward, but she opened her arms, and he practically rushed into them.

“Mama,” he said – sobbed, really. He was probably snotting all over her shoulder, but it didn’t matter, nothing else did. This was his mother, and she was real, and she was holding him so tight. “Mama.”

“Oh, my baby,” she whispered.

After seconds or minutes or hours, they finally, reluctantly drew apart – Kurt had no sense of the time, but he knew that he had managed to stop mindlessly sobbing, and the guard had dragged a plastic chair over to him, so he could sit down right next to her.

“Oh, baby,” she said again, once they had both gotten their tears under control. “You’re so thin.”

He probably was. He knew he had lost a bit of weight. But so had she. She looked a lot different, actually, mainly due to the ugly red prison uniform she had on and the uglier short haircut, which lay limp without product. She smelled differently too – in his memories of hugging her, of being in her arms, she always had the comforting smells of her favorite lotions, shampoos, or perfumes. Now she just smelled like soap. 

He tried to put that out of his mind, and smile at her. “I’m okay,” he said. “The food I’ve been eating has been kind of different here, but – but I’m still eating healthy, at least.”

“How are you?” she asked. But then, before he could answer, she continued, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry this happened, baby. I never meant…”

“I know,” Kurt told her. “And… I miss you. And I miss Seattle. But I’m okay, okay? You don’t have to worry about me. Just worry about you. Do you know – Burt wasn’t really clear on, with the changes in the case, how long it’ll be before you get out of here.”

She smiled back at him, but it wasn’t the type of smile he was used to from her. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Not for a couple of years, baby. But, hopefully no longer than that. I don’t know, my lawyer still has a lot to argue out in front of a judge. But she’s really good. I’m sure…. She’ll get me out of here, not as soon as I want to get out of here, but probably sooner than I –” she cut herself off, and looked down at the table.

Kurt reached out and put one of his hands over hers. “I’m sure Burt will let me come visit you more now,” he said. “I’ll come visit as often as I can.”

She stared for a moment at their intertwined hands, then looked back up into his eyes. “How is it going with him?” she asked. “I mean, I know – I could tell, just by talking to him yesterday, that things have been rough – but is it getting any better? Is he really going to PFLAG meetings?”

Kurt forced himself not to flinch as she talked. “Yes, he is, actually,” he assured her. “He… he’s, he’s really making an effort.” It wasn’t a lie, technically, Burt hadn’t done anything really hurtful or objectionable since he went to that meeting, but the praise of his father still burned in his throat. 

“Okay, okay, good. I’m glad. And how are you doing? You’re going to a new school, right?”

“Yeah. It’s- it’s okay. I joined the glee club there. And I’m making new friends. I still miss Seattle, though. Of course. But, I’m trying to keep in touch with everyone.”

“I’m sure everyone misses you too,” she told him. “You had so many great friends… I’m glad you’re keeping in touch with them.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“And – I know it’s hard, baby, with everything going on – but try to keep doing well on your schoolwork, okay?”

“I am,” he assured her, but she kept talking past him.

“You’re on track right now to get into a great college, and that’s really important, okay? You keep your grades, and you’ll be able to get in somewhere in Seattle, if you want to. Or… I know you’ve talked about New York City before. You keep doing well, and it’ll be your choice. And don’t worry about me. You just decide where you want to go, and whenever I get out, my lawyer said that she can help me petition the court to move to whatever state you end up in.”

“Okay,” he said, blinking back the tears that welled up as he thought of the future that suddenly seemed a lot more hopeful.

“Okay,” she repeated, with a brighter smile on her face now. “We’ll get through this, baby.”

“We will,” Kurt agreed. “I’ll keep my grades up, and- I’ll decide what I want to do. I have thought about it a little – about going back to Seattle as soon as I tur- as soon as I graduate, but, you’re right, I need to put more thought into what college I want to end up at. Plus, my glee club’s going to New York for a competition next week – who knows; maybe I’ll fall in love. I’ve always wanted to visit.”

“I’m glad you’re able to do that,” she said.

“Yeah – it’s a national competition,” Kurt told her. “The glee club’s really cool, it’s actually the best part of living here. I don’t know if I’m going to have any lines in the competition, though – it’s only a week away, but we haven’t decided what we’re going to sing yet.”

“Well, good luck,” she told him.

“Thanks,” he replied. “I guess we’ll probably need it.”

His mother looked over at the big digital clock that was on the wall, and her face fell a little. “Look, Kurt,” she said, “it’s almost time to go. I just, I just wanted to apologize again, for one more thing. 

“It’s okay, mom” he said assuredly. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“I just…” She seemed to be struggling with what she had to say, so Kurt squeezed her hand encouragingly. She squeezed back, and continued. “Your father? The way things are between the two of you? I never meant for it to be that way. I hated having to separate you two, having to tell you not to look for him.”

“Why would you be sorry about that?” Kurt asked her. “I mean – he’s trying now, and we’re making the best of it, but mama, I mean, everything you said was true – he’s totally, he’s, he’s homophobic.” 

“I didn’t lie to you when I told you about him,” she said. “But – it’s complicated. His homophobia – that’s not the reason I told you not to seek him out. I told you not to seek him out, and I told you all of those terrible things about him because, because I didn’t want to lose you. I mean, if you found him, if you somehow managed to do research and found out where we came from, if you reached out to him, he… well, he’d take you away, and put me in prison,” she finished wryly.

Kurt frowned. “What are you trying to say?” he asked.

She sighed again. “I didn’t lie to you,” she repeated. “He did all those things I told you, in high school. He was a total bully. But Kurt – he, he’s not a bad person. I’m not saying that he’s right, or that that part of him isn’t bad. But, I mean, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him – I wouldn’t have married him, or had a child with him, if that’s really the type of person he was. If he wasn’t a good person, underneath it all. Just the change from him graduating high school, and taking classes at Rhodes State, he just, he matured, he was turning into a great guy. I didn’t leave him because he was homophobic, Kurt. I didn’t leave him at all – he divorced me, when all of this started going down.”

“How can you say that?” Kurt asked. Tears were slipping down his face again. “You don’t even know – you don’t even know! He’s everything you told me about. He’s horrible. He – mom, he threw away my clothes because they were too gay!”

“Oh baby, I’m sorry.”

“All of them! I was allowed to take four bags from home, and he threw away all of them! He – he blamed you for turning me gay, did you know that? I don’t know – I don’t know why you’re defending him!”

His mom leaned over again, and took him back in her arms. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“I get so much shit here, I get taunted and harassed at school, and people make phone calls and write slurs, and, and he just acts like I bring it all on myself. Like it’s my fault.” He wasn’t sure if his mom could hear him anymore, he was crying so hard. He leaned down and pressed his head against her arm, and she reached up and cradled the back of his head.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” she repeated. “I know it’s so hard. You’re so brave. You’re so strong. But you shouldn’t have had to go through any of that.”

He let himself cry all over her shoulder again, this time not trying to bring himself under control, just crying and crying until the tears dried out and he felt numb. His mother kept up her litany of apology, but Kurt just tuned it out and clung to her until he felt her head lift off of his cheek, and he knew she was looking at the clock again. He forced himself to pull back. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just been really hard. “But I don’t want you to worry about me – he is trying, now.”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I’m going to worry about you no matter what. It’s a mother’s prerogative, okay?”

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” he replied. “Look – I know we don’t have much time left – if we have any time – but before I have to go, I wanted to give you something.” He brought the picture he had taken at prom out of his pants pocket, and held it in front of him. “I went to prom a couple of weeks ago. I had to go by myself, but…”

“Oh,” his mother said. “I’m sorry, baby. I know you were looking forward to going with Adrian.”

“We broke up anyway,” he said. “It – it’s no big deal. Long distance thing, you know? And I did end up having fun. Look.” He held out his prom picture to her, hoping it looked less pathetic to her than it did to him. “I don’t know if you can keep it? I don’t know what they let you have.”

She smiled wistfully at the picture. “Oh baby,” she said. “You’re really growing up, aren’t you? Yes, they should let me keep this.”

She put the picture gently down on the table in front of them, and leaned into him for one more hug. They held each other tightly for one last time, and Kurt wished they could just hold on forever, both just stay here and neither having to go back to their real lives. But his mother finally drew back away from him, and gave him one last sad smile, and the guard led him away.

After the guard brought him back to the front hall, he saw Burt there, pacing a little, and looking unaccountably nervous.

“Hey,” Kurt said. “Thank you for bringing me.” He really wanted Burt to bring him back again. Soon, hopefully. Maybe he could take another picture in New York, and bring that for her too.

“You’re welcome,” Burt said, and they headed out to the car together. “So, I told Carole that the two of us would just get something to eat before we headed home,” he informed Kurt once they were outside. “Is that okay with you? You can choose the restaurant, wherever you want to go.”

“Are you sure? You might end up at a sushi place, or maybe a vegan place opened up down the road that you don’t know about,” Kurt lightly teased him. He wasn’t quite sure why he wasn’t angry, why he wasn’t demanding to be taken home and burying his face in his pillow. But it had been a long day, he’d barely touched his lunch and dinner out sounded good, even if it was with his father instead of his mother.

“Wherever you want,” Burt told him, as they climbed in the car. “I guess I can have sushi once in my life, if it’ll make you happy. Once.”

Kurt smiled, a little bit. “Well, I won’t torture you like that,” he said. “There’s a place on Park that’s supposed to have a great black bean burger – along with other, more meat-filled options. Maybe we can give that a try.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Burt said, but he paused before putting the key in the ignition. “Look, Kurt…” He trailed off, and Kurt waited for him to continue. “I know that things have been really hard on you – and I know I’ve already apologized for how I acted before, but… I just wanted to let you know that I really mean it. I really am sorry, for everything I did wrong. I wish I could go back and redo it, from that first day.” Burt held his hand up, as though he was going to clasp Kurt on the shoulder, but Kurt kept his eyes on the glove compartment in front of him, and didn’t move, didn’t react. Burt let his hand fall. “I don’t expect you to forgive me anytime soon, but, I hope – someday. Because you’re a great kid, Kurt – just the way you are – and I should have understood that from the start. But I do now. And I’m really proud that I’m your father, okay? Even though I know that I had precious little to do with how you turned out.”

“Thank you,” Kurt finally said, after a pause of not knowing how to respond.

Burt turned the car on. “Okay, I’m starved,” he said. “Let’s see what this place of yours has got.”

* * *

The last week and a half before Nationals seemed to fly past. Mr. Schuester finally ( _finally_ ) decided that their group was going to perform a Coldplay medley, and assigned the parts. To Kurt’s dismay, he wasn’t one of the ones slated for a solo. He was surprised how disappointed he felt, actually; he knew he was the newest member of the group and he had plenty of more important things going on in his life, but still. It would’ve been nice. He enjoyed performing, and he knew he was good at it. But his teacher had only given him one line that wasn’t part of the chorus – harmonizing with Artie on a line in one of the verses of Clocks.

Finn and Rachel were doing a duet on Shiver. Quinn was really, really mad about that, but Mr. Shuester said, and most of them agreed, that a Finn-Rachel duet represented their best chance at a win. Kurt felt a little jealous – Finn was being featured on Yellow, in addition to the duet – but mainly, he just felt sorry for him. Quinn had been giving him a hard time ever since prom, and he was spending less and less of his time over at her house, and more at home. They didn’t seem willing to break up yet, but Kurt had a feeling it was only a matter of time.

The Wednesday before they were due to go, Kurt and Finn came home from an extra-long practice to find their parents waiting for them with suspiciously excited looks on their faces.

“We have two pieces of good news,” Carole started. “First of all, we’re going to be putting this house on the market. We’ve decided to buy that house on Evergreen that we looked at, the one with four bedrooms.”

“All right!” Finn said. “Can I have the extra bedroom? Can I make it into a game room? Can we put the big TV in there?”

“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do with the extra bedroom,” Burt told them.

“But I’m probably getting it,” Carole teased.

“And hey, you get your own bathroom, kid,” Burt told Kurt. Kurt had to smile.

“When are we moving?” Finn asked.

“Probably not for a couple months,” Burt said. “But it’s pretty certain; we wouldn’t get your hopes up otherwise.”

“And we have other news too,” Carole said. “We talked to your glee club teacher last week, about taking time off to come to New York with you, and acting as chaperones. And he called us back this afternoon to say that we could go! He got us plane tickets, but we’re going to have to get our own room. Isn’t that exciting?”

Kurt didn’t actually think it was all that exciting, and judging by Finn’s face, neither did he. “Oh, really?” Finn asked weakly.

“I can’t wait to see what New York’s like,” Carole continued, seemingly oblivious to their reactions. “And of course, we can’t wait to see you guys perform!”

“I guess that’ll be nice,” Finn admitted, still not sounding happy.

“Finn has a duet,” Kurt offered.

“I can’t believe we haven’t been to any of your shows yet,” Burt said. “We’ve been meaning to for a while, and now’s a perfect time.”

“I’m just going to be in the chorus, I’m too new.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Carole said. “It’ll still be good to see you. Both of you. Plus, maybe we can find the time to do something else while we’re there. Go to a restaurant, maybe even a show.”

That piqued Kurt’s interest, but Finn was obviously still put out. Kurt suspected he had probably been hoping to sneak out and go to a restaurant or something with Quinn. Kurt himself had been looking forward to spending time in the sophisticated city without being under Burt’s thumb, the way it felt he was all the time at home. He knew they were trying to do a nice thing, but still. He had actually been looking forward to this trip for a while, but it suddenly seemed to lose some of its shine.

* * *

Around the time the edges of the city became visible from the plane, Kurt forgot to be upset about the fact that his father and Carole were three rows behind him. Instead, all of his attention was sucked in by the city. He had grown up on the outskirts of Seattle, which was a major city in itself, but New York City was just so massive that it could hardly compare. The ride from the airport to the hotel whizzed by too fast as he tried to take in everything they were passing by, and his mind filled in all of the countless restaurants and boutiques beyond their road that he couldn’t yet see.

The first thing he did, while Mr. Schuester was checking them in, was go to the hotel gift shop, and buy a postcard to send to his mother. His father and Carole, having booked their rooms at the last minute, weren’t in the same hotel. They were actually pretty far away, in New York terms at least, since a lot of places were filled up because of the competition. Finn and Quinn actually did manage to sneak out that night, though it couldn’t have gone very well, since both of them seemed unhappy the next morning.

Burt and Carole did come back after the continental breakfast and accompanied the group several places; a quick trip to Central Park, a visit to the performance hall and the Olive Garden in Time’s Square. It was all amazing; even the trip to the Olive Garden took them past Broadway. And when Kurt started ranting to Rachel about the numerous culinary treasures they were passing over in favor of a chain restaurant, Burt overheard, and apparently paid attention Because the next day, Burt and Carole took him, Finn, and Rachel to the Zen Palate for lunch while everyone else ordered pizza. It was one of the best meals he’d ever had. Even Finn didn’t hate it.

Far too soon, it was time for the competition. They watched some of the other groups first, and they were all so good. It was intimidating, and by the time it was time to go backstage, Kurt felt vaguely nauseous. 

But then they were on, and it all fell away. Every note, every step came naturally, and the lights and the knowledge of the crowd out there gave him such a high feeling that he didn’t think he’d ever come down.

After they were done they rushed backstage, where Mr. Schuester was waiting. Burt and Carole joined them shortly after with wide smiles on their faces. Carole grabbed Finn, and gave him a big hug, exclaiming excitedly about how well they did. Burt held his hands out, and Kurt stepped over and gave him a hug with barely any thought. “I’m so proud of you,” Burt whispered into his ear. “You looked so amazing up there.” He gave Kurt a quick squeeze around his shoulders, and Kurt squeezed back before stepping away. “You both did a good job,” Burt continued, leaning over and clapping Finn on the back.

“You did!” Carole agreed, and she stepped over, and Kurt met her in a hug too. “We’re so proud of you.” 

“Thanks,” Kurt said. “Thank you.” He still felt like he was walking on air. He knew he hadn’t been a star up on that stage, but he still felt like he was a part of something special, like he had done something wonderful, and he saw it reflected in their eyes. He couldn’t even be disappointed about them invading his trip to New York anymore. He was just happy.

Even later, after the New Directions found out that they had only gotten eleventh place, Kurt still couldn’t find it in himself to get worked up about it. It seemed that everyone around him was upset and pretty vocal about it, but he knew that they had done a great job. He knew that he had done a great job. And he knew that one day, he’d find his way back to this city, one way or another.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Summers in Ohio, Kurt discovered, were a lot more humid and unpleasant than they had been in Seattle. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world since he spent most of the days since school had let out either hanging in the basement with the fan on, or hanging with his friends at the air-conditioned mall. But then moving day came, and all the boxes and furniture needed to be dragged out to the U-Haul and packed up, just to be unpacked a few miles away. Burt had a lot of his friends over to help, so it wasn’t that strenuous on him (Kurt mostly grabbed the smaller, more delicate boxes filled with Carole’s nicer things, mainly to protect them from the helpers who were slinging boxes all over the place) but he still felt every degree. He was definitely going to take special care with his facial tonight.

And he could, because now he was going to have his own bathroom, right across the hall from his own room.

Sharing a room with Finn hadn’t been as catastrophic as he might have predicted four months ago. The two of them had actually gotten pretty close, because or in spite of their proximity. But he was still looking forward to having his own space again, a room he could arrange, a door he could close. And Finn was still just down the hall, in case one of them felt the urge to hang out or talk.

The day seemed to take forever – Burt and Carole seemed to have so many things – but eventually it was over, the sun was setting, it was cooling off, and Burt was buying everyone pizza. Kurt let himself have a slice.

The next few days were busy, but at least the unpacking could be done inside the air-conditioned house. Kurt made quick work of his room, since he still had only a minimal amount of clothes and other stuff to work with, and having already planned out the furniture layout weeks ahead. He helped Carole with the kitchen next, and the dining room. After that, she asked him to help Finn, who was still surrounded by boxes, and sleeping on a sleeping bag on top of his mattress. At least the X-Box was set up.

All together, they had managed to unpack most of the important boxes by the time Mei-Ling and the Fergusons came to visit.

Kurt had been thrilled when he got the call from Sandy saying that her parents wanted to take a family trip and come see him. The Fergusons had always been close to him and his mom, from as far back as he could remember, so he understood why they wanted to come. But still, between the cost of airfare, the rental car, and the motel they’d be staying at, he was touched. And when Mei-Ling found out about it, she and Sandy had both begged for her to be included too. Kurt had called her up and laughingly warned her that Lima was the least fun summer vacation spot ever, but she was undeterred.

Kurt had been worried about his father’s reaction to the news of the trip, since it was obvious the first few months how much he had wanted to cut Kurt off from his former life. But Burt seemed to take it in stride. He didn’t make a mention of limiting their time, and he told Kurt to pass on an offer to take them out to dinner the first night they’d be there. Carole had even told him that they’d be welcome to stay in the guest bedroom if it would save them any money, and even though he knew they wouldn’t take her up on it, it was still a nice offer.

They arrived six days after the move, driving themselves directly from the airport, without stopping at the motel. Sandy and Mei-Ling were out of the car almost before it had even reached a complete stop, and they enveloped him in hugs from both sides. His father came out of the house shortly after he did, and the adults greeted each other cordially, if a bit awkwardly. Kurt wasn’t sure what his mother may have told them about his father, but he supposed it was still a strange situation even if she had never mentioned anything. He knew that Sandy’s parents were planning on visiting Kurt’s mom as part of their trip to Ohio, and he wondered what that conversation would go like. He wasn’t planning on asking to join them, though. He didn’t need to; Burt had been good about getting him over to see his mom whenever he had asked. 

The girls finally untangled themselves from his sides, and they hesitantly greeted his father, as well as Carole and Finn, who had also come out of the house to meet them. The girls insisted on going to see his room before they all left for the restaurant, and as soon as the three of them escaped up there and closed the door, Mei-Ling rounded on him. “Why didn’t you tell me Finn was so cute?”

“Because he’s my brother? I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to think things like that about your brother.” Kurt said, raising an eyebrow at his friend.

“He’s your step brother,” Sandy said with a mischievous smile. “Besides, that excuse won’t work on her, she’s a Supernatural fan.”

“Oh my god,” Kurt said. “Please. Please don’t.”

“Come on,” Mei-Ling said. “Didn’t you say he just broke up with his girlfriend? Can’t you put in a good word for me?”

“Oh, trust me,” Kurt told her. “You don’t want in on the mess that is his love life. Besides, what if you guys did hit it off? Trust me, trying to maintain a long distance relationship can be really hard.”

Kurt felt guilty as he noticed that the mood soured for a minute on that note. The girls both frowned and Mei-Ling looked away. He tried to think of something he could change the subject to, but Sandy beat him to it. “Hey, guess what,” she said, grabbing a haphazardly wrapped package out of the green tote bag she was carrying. “We brought you a gift from Ani.”

Kurt took the package, and unwrapped it carefully. “It’s a cowl scarf!” Mei-Ling told him excitedly as he ripped the paper open. He smiled, and twirled the caramel-colored scarf around his neck with a flourish.

“It’s perfect,” Sandy said.

“It is,” Kurt agreed. “Thank you. I need to thank her too, it must have taken forever.”

Mei-Ling brought her phone out. “Let me take a picture, we can post it on facebook.” Kurt struck his best pose, and Sandy leaned in. “Gorgeous,” Mei-Ling proclaimed, after taking the picture and tapping a few buttons. “We’ll have to take a lot more pictures, though. Now that you’re not on a cheap phone anymore, you need to post more. I haven’t seen anything from you since you took that trip to New York.”

“I will,” Kurt promised.

“Okay, now, what are we going to do tomorrow?” Sandy asked. “We’re going to go check in and crash at our motel after dinner tonight, but tomorrow’s pretty open.”

“Depends,” Kurt said. “We could take a trip into Columbus, if you want. Or we can stay in town, check out Lima’s sorry excuse for a mall, and maybe convince some of my new friends to meet up with us – if you don’t mind.”

“It’s up to you,” Mei-Ling said. “You can choose. We’re up for whatever; we’re just here to hang out with you.”

“Okay,” Kurt said with a smile. “Lima’s crappy mall it is. I’ll text Tina and Mercedes, and maybe Brittany later. I hope you guys all get along. I think you will.”

“It’ll be fine,” Sandy said. “It’s really hard not to bond over shopping.”

“We should probably get back downstairs,” Kurt said, as he took off his scarf, and laid it on his bed. “We’ve left them alone long enough and I don’t think I want to know what they’re talking about.”

“Okay,” Sandy agreed, and Kurt led them out, down the hall, and downstairs to where his family was waiting outside.


End file.
